Thousands of people paraded through the centre of The Hague on Sunday afternoon to protest at the coronavirus measures currently in place in the Netherlands. New rules, including the return of face masks in shops and wider use of the coronavirus pass system, came into effect on Saturday.

Their number included a number of supporters of extreme-right group Voorpost, identified by their use of the the Prinsen flag – an orange, white and blue version of the Dutch flag used by the Dutch Nazi party during World War II.

Police estimated the crowd to be at 20,000 to 25,000, website Nu.nl reported.

Meanwhile, patient monitoring organisation LCPS said the number of coronavirus patients being treated in hospital had risen by 91 overnight to 1,490. That is the highest total since May 27, when 1,512 people were in hospital.

Of them, 305 are being treated in intensive care, a rise of 17 on Saturday.  In total, 26 people were admitted to an IC ward over the past 24 hours and nine were released.

The number of positive coronavirus tests reported to public health institute RIVM in the 24 hours to Sunday morning was 11,398, down over 600 on Saturday’s total.

Sunday’s figure is often lower because fewer tests are carried out at the weekend. The positive test rate was 16.6%, also down slightly on Saturday.