Dutch Lockdown 2.0 | Day #95

Welp, our PM has announced that we will be going into a hard-lockdown starting tomorrow.

I don’t agree with calling it a ‘hard-lockdown’ cause many things remain open. I would have called it an ‘intelligent-lockdown’ but whatever that is just naming.

The decision I think is good, but many moons too late.

The whole year starting March, we’ve been dealing with inconsistent and soft rules. I feel very bad for business people due to the poor decisions made by the government.

The hard-lockdown should have happened back in the Spring or Summer already. Due to the inconsistencies and delays, many business people I know had to rely on loans or deal with hefty losses.

Hoping that they would recover when things return back to normal. But the government let them down. Every month, a small adjustment to the rules. First, it was in a few cities masks required, then not. Then there was a soft-lockdown and went back on it again after a few weeks.

Instead of going into a hard-lockdown earlier and letting business owners expect hefty losses for a month or two, they had to deal with inconsistent losses and rules across the whole year.

Now due to the hard-lockdown, it will be even worse for them. Or even the end.

I’m glad that this decision has happened overall. Lockdowns in general have proven to reduce the numbers (not an expert though).

But feel extremely bad for business owners that they had to deal with losses across the whole year cause the government was inconsistent.

Even worse, the hard-lockdown took place at the worst possible time. The Holiday(s) month where consumers spend the most. Guess business owners need to miss that revenue as well.

(Not to be a hater towards the government, I think they have made many good decisions as well. For example, I think they have provided many good options to get loans or subsidiaries to due Coronavirus.)

Overall, I think that the Dutch government has made the right choice to go into lockdown. But it should have happened way earlier this year. I hope that 2021 will be a better year for everyone.

For me, it is going to be.