Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy is receiving the prestigious International Four Freedoms Award.

An independent report on the Dutch response during the early months of the coronavirus pandemic says the Netherlands was inadequately prepared.

The Netherlands has moved into a tougher lockdown that was announced amid spiking infection rates even before the country recorded its first confirmed cases of the new, more highly transmissible omicron variant.

The Dutch government says social distancing will end in the Netherlands on Sept. 25.

Emergency services attend the scene close to a coronavirus test station after a homemade firework was detonated in Bovenkarspel, Netherlands, Wednesday March 3, 2021. The homemade firework, a so-called "pipe" firework, was fired near to the Covid test station Wednesday and broke some windows but no people are reported injured. (Stefanie ter Koele / AP)THE HAGUE – A blast caused by a “homemade device” smashed windows at a coronavirus testing center in a small Dutch town early Wednesday, police said. Nobody was hurt in the explosion, which was condemned by the government and health officials. In January, rioters torched a coronavirus test facility in the fishing village of Urk on the first night of a 9 p.m.-to-4:30 a.m. nationwide curfew imposed as part of the government’s latest coronavirus lockdown.

(AP Photo/Peter Dejong)BERGSCHENHOEK – Residents of a Dutch town filed into a sports hall Wednesday to take part in the country's first mass coronavirus testing program, which aims to find out more about the spread of a new more transmissible coronavirus variant. Dr. Ewout Fanoy, with the local health authority, said the testing would provide data about how and how fast the new variant is spreading. “Almost everybody will understand that there was no other choice, because numbers are not falling fast enough and we are now also have to face the threat of the British virus variant,” Rutte said. Confirmed new COVID-19 infections in the Netherlands over the last week fell 12% to 49,398, the Dutch public health institute said Tuesday. Hospital admissions for virus patients fell 18% and new COVID-19 patients in intensive care units declined by 12%.

The Dutch government has come under fierce criticism for its late start to vaccinations. Dutch Health Minister Hugo de Jonge did not comment on the criticism as he spoke before Elkadiri rolled up the left sleeve of her purple nurse's uniform to receive the first shot. ”The Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine, which requires ultra-cold storage before it is used, is the only shot that has been approved so far by the EU’s medicines agency. Andre Rouvoet, chairman of the umbrella organization of local health authorities, welcomed the first vaccinations, which were aired live on Dutch television. “It is symbolic of the hundreds of thousands — millions — of vaccinations that will be administered in the Netherlands in coming months,” he said.

(AP Photo/Mark Baker)CANBERRA, Australia — Australia is advancing the start of its coronavirus vaccination program to mid-February, with plans to inoculate 15% of the population by late March. Mexico’s vaccination effort continues at a glacial rate, with about 7,500 shots administered Wednesday, a rate similar to previous days. John Bel Edwards and public health officials said Wednesday that efforts are being made to speed up vaccinations for the coronavirus. So far, state officials have administered 126,602 of the 522,550 doses the state has received. More than 329,000 people have been vaccinated in Florida — or about 1.5% of the population — almost all of them either health care workers, residents in care homes, or people over the age of 65.

Medical staff wait for the next in line for a throat and nasal swab at a COVID-19 testing facility of the Municipal Health Authority GGD, in Utrecht, Netherlands, Wednesday, Dec. 16, 2020. (AP Photo/Peter Dejong)THE HAGUE – The Dutch health minister said Thursday that coronavirus vaccinations using the Pfizer-BioNTech shots will start Jan. 8 if the European Union's medicines agency approves it for use next week. In neighboring country Germany, authorities said Wednesday that vaccinations would start in nursing homes on Dec. 27. The health ministry called the Jan. 8 date “the fastest feasible planning, taking into account all due care requirements and steps" that can only be taken once the European Medicines Agency greenlights the vaccine. Those steps include a Dutch health agency publishing advice on the vaccine's suitability for different sections of the Dutch population, and testing IT systems that will be used during the vaccination process.