THE HAGUE, Netherlands — In the face of demonstrations across much of Europe protesting tough COVID-19 measures over the past days, authorities on Monday pleaded for patience, calm and a willingness to get a vaccine shot in the arm as infections spike upward again.
And for those who abused the protests to foment violence, Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte just called them “idiots.”
Protest marches from Zagreb to Rome and from Vienna to Brussels and Rotterdam, bringing tens of thousands out, all had one message from a coronavirus-weary crowd — we’ve had enough!
“Not able to work where you want work, to be where you want to be. That’s not what we stand for, that’s not freedom,” said Eveline Denayer, who was at Sunday’s march in Brussels, which drew a crowd of over 35,000.
“We live in Western Europe and we just want to be free, how we were before,” she said. Government leaders and European Union officials all made clear on Monday that a return to bygone days was still out of the question and that the violence at some of the marches was counterproductive.
Much of the discontent however is targeted at politicians who had promised that vaccinations would bring freedom. With the delta variant making sure contagion remains rampant, EU governments are being forced to reimpose constraints and — in some countries — slap tougher restrictions on the non-vaccinated.
“The rising numbers are unfortunately fueling vaccine hesitancy, and we all need to take a firm stand against this,” said EU Health Commissioner Stella Kyriakides. However, she said the spike is mainly to blame on those who refuse to have a shot.
“But now we are facing a pandemic mainly driven by the unvaccinated,” Kyriakides said.
Breakthrough infections and deaths among the vaccinated happen, though at far lower rates, according to officials.
Rutte condemned rioters in Rotterdam and across the Netherlands after coronavirus protests there and in Brussels descended into violence amid simmering anger at lockdown measures being put into place in an attempt to rein in soaring rates of infection.
Late Friday, police in Rotterdam even used live fire to disperse rioters gone amok, and four people suffered gunshot wounds.
