[7] On the advice of the Outbreak Management Team (OMT), under supervision of Jaap van Dissel, measures were taken by the Third Rutte cabinet for the public health to prevent the spread of this viral disease, including the "intelligent lockdown".

[12] In March 2020, Prime Minister Mark Rutte called for herd immunity as an important method to stop the pandemic.

[13] On 23 January 2021, as the government imposed a nationwide 9:00 p.m. curfew in a context of emergence of the British variant, the worst riots in 40 years broke out across the country.

Since the end of November 2021, the SARS-CoV-2 Omicron variant is spreading in parts of Europe (i.e. UK, Denmark and France).

[15] On 12 January, the World Health Organization (WHO) confirmed that a novel coronavirus was the cause of a respiratory illness in a cluster of people in Wuhan, Hubei, China, who had initially come to the attention of the WHO on 31 December 2019.

The Dutch government banned flights from the United Kingdom, where the strain was originally identified, in response.

[95] In January 2021, it was discovered that personal data of people in the contact tracing database was illegally sold to fraudsters by call center employees having access to them.

[98][101] An opinion poll by public broadcaster NOS indicated that the curfew was supported by seven out of 10 Dutch respondents, with just 18% of the population opposing it.

[107] In November 2021, the government proposed implementing the "2G rule", a measure to only allow individuals who are vaccinated (gevaccineerd) or have recovered from a COVID-19 infection (genezen) from being able to enter hotels, restaurants, cafes, cultural and artistic places, and events, and to use non-essential services.

[119] In late March, the government announced strict social distancing rules as cases surged over 5,000.

[63] Other measures were that schools and day-cares were closed, except for children whose parents work in the 'vital' sectors, like health care.

[120] As a response to the large increase in positive tests since July, the Dutch government released additional regulations on 13 October.

These include:[121] Additionally the government advised people to remote work and limit unnecessary travel.

Sint Maarten, a holiday where children collect sweets from neighbours, was still held with social distancing and maximum group size regulations in place.

[123][124][125] In January 2021, the government extended its regulations and considered tightening them to limit the spread of Lineage B.1.1.7, which is estimated to be more contagious.

[126] The Dutch Ministry of Public Health officially maintains an application called CoronaMelder for Android and iOS.

[127] The applications, including the backend are open source software under the European Union Public License.

The maintainers stated that they are unable to track the number of users that actively use the application owing to privacy reasons.

[133] A lack of testing capacity causes a distinct number of deaths by COVID-19 that are not registered as such, although local doctors can recognise the symptoms.

The coordination has been criticised, with the regional GGD offices stating there is no clear national plan to scale up testing.

[139] On 1 June, a national telephone number was made public through which a test time and location could be scheduled.

The new system, although initially overwhelmed by the number of callers on the first day, tested 50,000 people in the first week and had 100,000 applicants by 11 June.

[141] In response to regulations announced on 12 March, panic buying of food, toilet paper and medicines, resulted in empty shelves in supermarkets.

[145] Three days later it was announced in a press conference that all restaurants, museums, sport clubs and schools had to close.

[51] A Dutch "grassroots" initiative, Mond Kapjes Nodig[146] was formed to address the local PPE shortages.