Mark Rutte is a Dutch politician who served as Prime Minister of the Netherlands between 2010 and 2024. Following his departure from national politics, Rutte will take up the post of NATO Secretary-General in October 2024. Rutte was the leader of the People's Party for Freedom and Democracy (VVD) from 2006 through 2023.
The National Institute for Public Health and the Environment is a Dutch research institute that is an independent agency of the Ministry of Health, Welfare and Sport.
Maria Cornelia Gezina "Mona" Keijzer is a Dutch politician and former civil servant who is the minister of housing and spatial planning in the Schoof cabinet since 2024. A member of the Farmer–Citizen Movement, she won a seat in the House of Representatives in the 2023 Dutch general election.
Sigrid Agnes Maria Kaag is a Dutch politician, humanitarian and diplomat who is the UN Senior Humanitarian and Reconstruction Coordinator for Gaza since 2024. Kaag most recently served in the fourth Rutte cabinet as First Deputy Prime Minister of the Netherlands and Minister of Finance from 2022 to 2024 and has previously served as Minister for Foreign Trade and Development Cooperation and Minister of Foreign Affairs. She was Leader of the Democrats 66 (D66) from 2020 to 2023.
General elections were held in the Netherlands from 15 to 17 March 2021 to elect all 150 members of the House of Representatives. Following the elections and lengthy coalition formation talks, the sitting government remained in power.
The global COVID-19 pandemic arrived in Europe with its first confirmed case in Bordeaux, France, on 24 January 2020, and subsequently spread widely across the continent. By 17 March 2020, every country in Europe had confirmed a case, and all have reported at least one death, with the exception of Vatican City.
The COVID-19 pandemic in Belgium has resulted in 4,871,551 confirmed cases of COVID-19 and 34,339 deaths.
The COVID-19 pandemic in Suriname was caused by Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2. The virus was confirmed to have reached Suriname on 13 March 2020. The case was a person who travelled from the Netherlands the previous week. On 3 April 2020, one person died. On 3 May 2020, all nine cases had recovered. On 18 May, an eleventh case was identified.
The COVID-19 pandemic in Curaçao was a part of the ongoing global viral pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), which was documented for the first time in Curaçao on 13 March 2020. The case was a 68-year-old man who was on vacation from the Netherlands. By 9 July 2020, all cases resolved. On 15 July, a new case was discovered, and on 6 August all cases resolved again briefly until 10 August.
The COVID-19 pandemic in Bonaire was part of the ongoing global viral pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), which was confirmed to have reached the Dutch Caribbean island of Bonaire on 16 April 2020. On 28 April, all cases recovered. On 14 July, two new cases were discovered. On 13 August, all cases recovered.
Jaap Tamino van Dissel is a Dutch virologist and infectiologist.
Irma Sluis is a Dutch sign language interpreter. She is an interpreter in Dutch sign language (NGT) and international sign language (Gestuno) and has published about working as a sign language interpreter in the Netherlands. Since 2005 she has been working with the Dutch broadcasting organisation NOS where she interprets the morning news.
The 2021 Dutch curfew riots were a series of riots in the Netherlands that initiated as protests against the government's COVID-19 prevention measures and specifically the 21:00–4:30 curfew that was introduced on 23 January 2021. The police have described the riots as the worst in the country since the 1980 coronation riots.
In the European Netherlands, a Municipal Health Service is a decentralised public health organisation. Legally, the responsibility for the provision of this service lies with the municipalities. However, in practice, the municipalities work together to provide this service at a regional level, resulting in twenty-five "GGD regions". The borders of the GGD regions largely correspond to the borders of the safety regions.
Herstel-NL is a Dutch organization that presented a plan in February 2021 to reopen Dutch society instead of continuing the hard lockdown that was introduced in December as a measure to combat the COVID-19 pandemic in the Netherlands. Herstel-NL was created as a result of an April 2020 article by economist and political scientist Robin Fransman about the costs and benefits of the coronavirus crisis measures in the magazine Economisch Statistische Berichten.
The fourth Rutte cabinet was the cabinet of the Netherlands from 10 January 2022 until 2 July 2024. The cabinet was a continuation of the third Rutte cabinet and was formed by the conservative liberal People's Party for Freedom and Democracy (VVD), the social liberal Democrats 66 (D66) and the Christian democratic Christian Democratic Appeal (CDA) and Christian Union (CU) after the election of 2021. The cabinet fell on 7 July 2023, after failing to reach an agreement on separate treatment of refugees fleeing from war. It continued serving as a demissionary cabinet until the Schoof cabinet was sworn in on 2 July 2024.
Protests against COVID-19 in the Netherlands were a series of protests and riots in the Netherlands against the government COVID-19 prevention measures, which were in force between 27 January 2020 and 20 May 2022, with travel restrictions lifted on 17 September 2022. The protests came to a head with the 2021 Dutch curfew riots in response to a nationwide night-time curfew between 23 January and 28 April 2021. Since the end of the COVID-19 pandemic in the Netherlands, a number of anti-lockdown protest groups and individual protesters have shifted their attention to the ongoing, largely concurrent Dutch farmers' protests against government legislation to limit agricultural pollution by downsizing livestock production.
During the COVID-19 pandemic in the Netherlands, various measures were taken by the government. On the advice of the Outbreak Management Team (OMT) set up by the National Institute for Public Health and the Environment (RIVM), many successive decisions were taken in a short period of time. The first preventive measures came into effect on Monday, January 27, 2020.
Conny Helder is a Dutch healthcare manager, who served as the Minister for Long-term Care and Sport and, for a few months, as Minister of Health, Welfare and Sport in the fourth Rutte cabinet (2022–2024).