Catering, culture sectors must open as soon as possible: Mayors

The catering and cultural sectors must reopen as soon as possible. The Cabinet must decide this on Friday afternoon and not wait until Tuesday. Relaxations are needed because the current coronavirus policy can no longer be defended. Catering establishments should be treated the same as shops and gyms. That said Hubert Bruls, chairman of the Security Council and mayor of Nijgemeng, on the radio program Sven op 1 on Friday.

The Security Council will have an extra meeting on Friday. Then the 25 mayors who lead the security regions will find out what the Outbreak Management Team's latest advice is and what the Cabinet plans to do with it. Mayors are responsible for implementing and enforcing the coronavirus policy.

Bruls believes that the Cabinet should open up society and that the Netherlands should learn to live with the coronavirus. Figures are no longer the determining factor, according to him. "The current number of infections would have shocked us to the core a few months ago. But that doesn't say much anymore because hospital admissions are falling." The mayors on the Security Council argue in favor of making full use of coronavirus access passes and setting up more testing options.