New Covid measures to be announced in Wednesday press conference

The government will hold a press conference on Wednesday afternoon to announce extra measures for curbing the spread of the coronavirus, Minister Hugo de Jonge of Public Health said on Tuesday, NU.nl reports.

The Health Minister did not elaborate on which measures will be implemented, but the government has been discussing the implementation of a curfew.

The number of coronavirus infections is falling in the current hard lockdown, but experts are very concerned about the spread of the B117 strain of the virus in the Netherlands.

The B117 strain, which was first identified in the United Kingdom, seems to be around 30 percent more contagious. "It is still a lot more contagious than other variants and that really presents a major problem. In the long run, this variant is more dangerous for the population than, for example, a variant that is 30 percent more deadly," Koen Pouwels, who is conducting large-scale coronavirus research at Oxford University, said to Nieuwsuur.

The Outbreak Management Team expects that the B117 variant will be the dominant coronavirus in the Netherlands by end February. The first variant will then be at a relatively low level, but any gains will be offset by the advance of the new variant and coronavirus infections will increase again from March.