What does “eerste golf” mean in Dutch?

Dutch uses golf (wave) to count the surges of a crisis: eerste golf, tweede golf, derde golf. During the COVID-19 pandemic, the RIVM and Dutch news outlets used these terms precisely — the eerste golf ran from March to June 2020. The word is borrowed from the sea but lives just as naturally in epidemiology, finance, and immigration policy, wherever a phenomenon arrives in distinct, repeating swells.

The punchline lands in the skit when the 2020-self cheerfully announces “het is nu de eerste coronagolf” — and the 2025-self shoots back “hoezo eerste?” (what do you mean, first?), implying the waves kept coming. Hoezo is itself worth noting: it means “how so / what do you mean” and is used to challenge or express skepticism about what someone just said — a very natural Dutch reaction word. Beyond pandemics, golf follows the same pattern in immigratiegolf (wave of immigration) and hittegolf (heat wave), making it a productive building block once you know it.