Some 11.5% of coronavirus tests last week were positive, wiping out two weeks of gains

Approximately 11.5 percent of people who self-reported for a coronavirus test were diagnosed with the SARS-CoV-2 infection over the past seven days, public health agency RIVM said in its update for the week ending Tuesday morning. That was the highest rate reported in two weeks, and the first time the figure has risen in five weeks.

The total excludes data from the surveys of the entire populations of Bunschoten, Dronten and the Rotterdam neighborhood of Charlois, where most residents were being asked to get tested regardless of symptoms to determine the spread of various coronavirus mutations. Including the wide-scale studies, would have brought the positivity rate to 11.2 percent, whereas last week the figure stood at 10.7 percent.

For every one hundred people contagious with the coronavirus, another 96 people were infected with the virus, the latest data showed. "More and more people are becoming infected with the more contagious British variant," the RIVM said of the B117 coronavirus mutation. Each person contagious with that variant likely infected 1.15 additional people on average, the RIVM said citing data through January 29.

Through Friday, an estimated two-thirds of those infected with the SARS-CoV-2 virus were carrying the B117 variant. "Recently, the UK reported the occurrence of a new mutation in the UK variant, E484K, in the 'spike protein,' the RIVM noted. It said that a vaccinated person, or someone who previously fought off a coronavirus infection, could still have a difficult time fending off the E484K.

Testing by municipal health service GGD fell for the second straight week, this time by 2.5 percent. Several GGD test locations remained closed part of last week after a winter storm brought extreme cold temperatures beginning on February 7. Facilities were closed periodically again on Monday after meteorological agency KNMI issued a severe weather warning for icy roads.

All told, 25,229 people in the Netherlands tested positive for the coronavirus infection last week, an increase of over two percent. While regular care hospitalizations for Covid-19 fell by four percent to 1,120, there was an increase in patients with the disease admitted into intensive care. That figure rose by 11 percent to 191.

The RIVM also said it learned of 423 deaths from the coronavirus disease last week, an increase of nearly four percent.

To date, 1,034,795 people have tested positive for the coronavirus infection, including 14,929 people who have died from Covid-19. Some 39,391 people have required treatment in a hospital's regular care ward, and 8,358 have required intensive care, figures from nonprofit organization NICE showed.

About 28 percent of all intensive care patients with Covid-19 died as a result, while 15 percent of regular care patients had a fatal outcome.