Deaths in first Covid wave 8 times higher in south NL than north

The first wave of coronavirus infections in the Netherlands claimed significantly more lives in the southern provinces than in the rest of the country, Statistics Netherlands reported on Thursday. The southern provinces had eight times more Covid-19 related deaths that Noord-Nederland.

The stats office previously reported that over 10 thousand Netherlands residents died of the coronavirus between early March and end June. According to the new figures, 3,861 of those deaths were in the southern provinces Noord-Brabant and Limburg. In those two provinces, 105 people per 100 thousand residents died of Covid-19.

In the eastern provinces Overijssel, Flevoland and Gelderland, 57 people per 100 thousand residents died of Covid-19 in the first wave. In Utrecht, Noord-Holland, Zuid-Holland and Zeeland in the west it was 47. And in Groningen, Friesland and Drenthe in the north, coronavirus mortality stood at 12 per 100 thousand residents.

The GGD region Hart voor Brabant, which covers the municipalities Tilburg, Den Bosch, Uden, Oss and Waalwijk, had the most deaths at 1,400. There a third of residents who died between March and June died of the coronavirus. In all of the Netherlands, the coronavirus was responsible for one in six deaths.