Amsterdam, Europe Brief News – Angry anti-lockdown protesters took to the streets into Amsterdam to protest the Netherlands’ COVID-19 policy.
The anti-lockdown protests came shortly after a press conference, which saw the Dutch government relax only some national coronavirus restrictions.
Authorities were granted stop and search powers at several locations across the city and scores of riot police vans patrolled neighbourhoods where the demonstrators marched with banners and yellow umbrellas.
The Netherlands had one of Europe’s toughest lockdowns for a month through the end-of-year holidays.
The World Health Organization (WHO) has warned of ‘tsunami’ of COVID cases in the near future due to Omicron spread.
The WHO further warned of the risk posed by the Omicron variant after COVID-19 case numbers shot up by 11 percent globally last week.
Omicron is behind the rapid virus spikes, the WHO said in its COVID weekly epidemiological update on Wednesday.
The update came after a number of countries reported record-high infection figures in recent days.
In some parts, the increase came in parallel with the emergence of the new Omicron variant, first detected in South Africa.
The WHO also said that half of Europe will catch Omicron.
WHO Regional Director for Europe Hans Kluge said a “west-to-east tidal wave” of Omicron was sweeping across the region. The Delta variant is on top of a surge, he added.
The projection was based on the seven million new cases reported across Europe in the first week of 2022.
The number of infections has more than doubled in a two-week period.
