mask—wearing will become compulsory outdoors for the second time. and, in the netherlands, with shops, restaurants and cinemas closed dutch people and businesses face a very bleak christmas. rising cases mean hospitals have had to cancel other types of surgery. there are now 600 at the icus. but it was at the cost of that we postponed the urgent surgeries for a lot of patients, and what we also did see in last weeks is that the number of people that died, in the total of the netherlands, was higher than expected. italy, the first western country to be hit by the covid—i9 pandemic earlier last year, said omicron infections now account for 28% of cases, but daily caseloads of coronavirus remain well below some other european countries, such as britain and germany. aruna iyengar, bbc news.