Sunday in November, around 5 in the afternoon, I finished my latest reunion with a cross trainer and other similar unsavoury devices in my gym.
A few doors down there is a post-secondary vocational education centre for older teenagers. On the ground floor of the same building there is a big supermarket belonging to the Dirk van den Broek national chain of supermarkets.
I stumbled from the gym to the supermarket.
When it comes to corona infections, the Dutch are up a creek and cannot find a suitable paddle.
They do not know how many people are infected because the maximum of their test capacity has been reached. Regular hospital wards and ICUs are filling up with corona patients at an alarming rate.
There is now talk of "code black": a situation where they decide to let people die because there is not enough capacity to treat everybody.
A talk show guru physician said recently that if code black is activated, the hospitals will have to be guarded by the police.
The police immediately replied: we do not have enough capacity, it will have to be done by the army.
The government has reintroduced a few measures.
One is the mandatory wearing of a face mask in all indoor areas accessible to the public, including shops. The only exceptions are indoor places where the coronavirus entry pass is used
The supermarket that was the destination of my weary tread was quite busy.
People were walking in and out without a face mask.
There were two young female shop assistants standing near to the entrance chatting to each other. One was wearing a face mask over her nose and mouth, the other had it under her chin.
I am not really integrated into Dutch society as I do not think rules only apply to other people.
I approached the young ladies and asked them why all these not wearing face masks people were in their shop. Should they not do something about it?
They replied that wearing a face mask was only an advice and their team leader had told them not to say anything about it.
I told them wearing a face mask in shops had been mandatory for over a week. They shrugged their shoulders.
Most of the staff inside the supermarket were either not wearing a face mask or wearing it under their chin.
Next day, a report in the media, Dutch Security Council chair:
"If compliance with the measures does not fundamentally change and the number of infections does not fall substantially, there will be a lockdown that will last all winter."
Another report: "still hoping that a lockdown can be averted, the cabinet makes another appeal to us about our behaviour."
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