Why the Dutch can’t stop bending the Covid rules

Half an hour before a partial lockdown began on Wednesday night, scores of people packed into tents outside a bar in the Hague to drink and party. Their celebrations were perhaps characteristic of how the Dutch have handled the pandemic.

Metres away, in the Dutch lower house, parliamentarians were at that moment enacting a partial lockdown to control spiralling coronavirus infections in the Netherlands. In the 14 days before 14 October, the infection rate reached just over 412 per 100,000, making the Netherlands one of the worst-affected countries in the EU. The partial lockdown means bars and restaurants will be closed for four weeks, adult team sports banned, people limited to three guests at home per day, and the sale of soft drugs and alcohol prohibited after 8pm.

Over the summer, parliamentarians, economists and the Dutch public were congratulating themselves on a successful, relatively light-touch lockdown, with infection rates close to zero.