Not all NL residents have easy access to Covid testing

From Saturday, people in the Netherlands will have to show a coronavirus access pass in the catering sector, at cultural institutions, and at events. For unvaccinated people, that means having to get tested for Covid-19. But not everyone has easy access to a Testing for Access location, NOS reports based on its own research.

Health Minister Hugo de Jonge said that 90 percent of Netherlands residents will live within 20 minutes' drive of a Covid-19 testing location. And while this is true for some 16 million people, large parts of the north and east of the Netherlands, and the border regions have to drive further to reach a Testing for Access location.

Residents of Stavoren in the southwest corner of Friesland, for example, have to drive just under 40 minutes to the nearest test center. The same is true for the residents of Hoogeland in Groningen. The whole of Zeeuws-Vlaanderen has only one testing location, set up in Terneuzen. That is half an hour away from the west of the region. Winterswijk residents have to drive 38 minutes to Enschede or 36 minutes to Doetinchem.

People living on the Wadden Islands of Schiermonnikoog and Vlieland currently have to go to the mainland to get tested for access, which means travel time of over an hour. Though Minister De Jonge did promise that testing locations will be opened on each island from Saturday.