Amsterdam’s red light district just got the green light to emerge from its coronavirus shutdown.
Dutch prime minister Mark Rutte said sex workers could get back to the grind beginning Wednesday, as daily reported COVID-19 deaths in The Netherlands fell to the single digits, the UK’s Sunday Telegraph reported.
“It’s a contact job like the hairdresser and masseur, and so they need to ask in advance if [clients] have any symptoms,” Rutte cautioned.
The prime minister said he’d requested information “about which positions were possible and which weren’t” from the Dutch National Institute for Public Health and the Environment — “but there was no further explanation.”
Still, at least one union has advised sex workers to stick to a strict safety protocol, including wearing latex gloves and face masks to protect themselves and their clients.
Red Light Union also suggested avoiding kissing, oral sex and only offering positions where they don’t have to face another person, according to the Daily Mail.
Many of the country’s sex workers have been left financially strapped by the lockdown, which began on March 16 and shuttered all schools, bars, restaurants, gyms and contact professions like theirs.
Activist and webcam and porn performer Yvette Luhrs told a local radio station that the upcoming reopening was bittersweet.
“It took too long for a colleague who ended it all earlier this week,” she told NOS Radio 1. “But also for people who have been evicted from their homes, and for the sex workers who just had to carry on working and were at risk.”