10 of 12 Dutch provinces go Dark Red on EU Covid map
Ten Dutch provinces are at the highest warning level on the map of coronavirus cases in Europe. Never before have so many provinces turned dark red. Only Groningen and Drenthe are still one step lower, on red.
Flevoland, Friesland, Zuid-Holland, Noord-Brabant, and Noord-Holland went from red to dark red on Thursday due to the high number of positive tests. They join Limburg, Gelderland, Overijssel, Zeeland, and Utrecht, who reached the highest level last week.
At the end of April, nine provinces were dark red. That was the Netherlands' record until Thursday.
Central, Eastern, and Southeastern Europe have the highest proportion of infections. An area that runs from Estonia to Greece is almost entirely dark red. The situation is most favorable in Italy, France, Spain, and Portugal, but the warning colors there also rose slightly this week.
The ECDC, an organization to which the National Institute for Public Health and the Environment (RIVM) belongs, looks at the number and percentage of positive tests in the two previous calendar weeks for the maps. The European coronavirus map has four colors. From low to high, these are green, orange, red, and dark red.
Reporting by ANP