Drenthe

This week the Dutch government's Outbreak Management Team (OMT) is examining possible "exit strategies" for how the Netherlands will get out of the coronavirus crisis and start relaxing measures. Experts think there are two options. One is to first relax measures in the northern provinces, where Covid-19 hasn't spread much and hospitals have the capacity to treat new cases. The other is releasing hard-hit Noord-Brabant first, because the province is closest to herd immunity with so many residents who have already been infected.

One restaurant in Amsterdam Oost was struck by gunfire three separate times in a one-week period leading up to Saturday. There were no injuries in any of the incidents on Borneosteiger.

In the most recent case, which took place Saturday at about 3:10 a.m., the glass front door was destroyed after having been hit by several bullets. A bullet hole was easily visible in another front glass windowpane.

Eight new patients were diagnosed with coronavirus on Monday, health agency RIVM said on Monday. "This brings the total number of positive tests in the Netherlands to 18," the agency stated.

"Nearly all new persons diagnosed with the new coronavirus are travelers from northern Italy or are family contacts of a previous patient," the statement continued. The health service GGD is now investigating who the new patients have made contact with recently.

The police shot a man in his leg in Drachten on Thursday night. The suspect was shot as he tried to flee arrest, the Friesland police said on Twitter. He was one of 10 suspects arrested during raids in Friesland, Groningen and Drenthe. The reason behind these raids were not disclosed.

The shooting incident in Drachten happened on Lavendelheide. The injured suspect was taken to hospital for treatment. An extensive trace evidence investigation was done around his Volkswagen, according to the Leeuwarder Courant. 

An impending winter storm on Sunday prompted Dutch football association KNVB to suspend all matches that day. Four matches in the top level Eredivisie will be rescheduled, as well as the country's full slate of amateur football matches, the KNVB said on Saturday.

The Eredivisie matches include FC Utrecht vs. Ajax, AZ vs. Feyenoord, Sparta Rotterdam vs. ADO Den Haag, and FC Emmen vs. FC Twente.

An intensive search led to the discovery of a new copy of footage from Camp Westerbork, a transit camp from which over 101 thousand people were deported out of the Netherlands by train during World War Two. The footage is a rare piece of film to still in existence which shows the Nazi camps during the Second World War, the The Netherlands Institute for War, Holocaust and Genocide Studies (NIOD) announced.

The year 2019 was a busy one for the Netherlands, with elections and strikes, multiple high profile murders and shootings, and a summer full of heat records, severe storms and poisonous caterpillars. Here follows a review of the top ten stories of this year. 

Car owners in the Netherlands will pay 147 million euros more in road taxes next year than this year, according to Statistics Netherlands. The increase is partly due to the growing fleet of vehicles, higher rates, and the particulate matter tax that will be implemented. In total, the government and provinces expect to collect almost 6.1 billion euros in road tax in 2020.

The road tax, or motor vehicle tax, consists of a government part and a part collected by the provinces. The government expects to collect 131 million euros more next year, the provinces 16 million euros more. 

A five-year-old boy who was trapped under the rubble of a snack bar which blew up on Saturday was rescued five hours after the explosion. The boy, known as Kenan, was taken by ambulance to an area hospital in serious condition, according to authorities in Drenthe.

He is the son of the snack bar's owner, according to RTL Nieuws. He was in communication with emergency workers during his ordeal, but it is not clear if that was still true several hours into the ordeal.

The boy's father, who owns the Ali Baba grill cafe, was taken to the hospital soon after the explosion. 

The long winter nights and upcoming holiday season mean that you stand a much greater chance of being burgled in the coming weeks. According to the Burglary Barometer, the chance of a burglary increases by an average of 72 percent until December. The risk of falling victim to a burglary increases most for residents of Zeeland, Drenthe and Limburg in the coming weeks, the Telegraaf reports. 

The 67-year-old father of six adult children kept concealed on a remote farm was ordered back into custody as the investigation into the case continues. The magistrate presiding over the case sent Gerritt Jan van D. back to jail for a 14-day period, which may be further extended at the court's discretion, the prosecutor's office said in a statement.