Nearly 6,000 more coronavirus infections brings average to 60-day peak

Coronavirus infections in the Netherlands this calendar week have risen by 21 percent from last week, with public health agency RIVM reporting that 5,974 more tests came back positive for the SARS-CoV-2 infection. That shifted the seven-day moving average up to 5,773, the highest it has been since January 16.

The average has gone up by 25 percent just since last Wednesday, and by nearly 50 percent since the beginning of February, when stormy weather severely impacted test capacity. So far this week, 16,508 people have tested positive for the viral infection.

The rolling average of new infections in the three largest cities has gone up considerably the past seven days. Amsterdam's figure has risen 18 percent to 249, while in Rotterdam it has increased by 24 percent to 232. In The Hague it jumped by a third to 153.

An estimated 31,067 were vaccinated against Covid-19 on Tuesday, the RIVM said. That was 13 percent below the moving average of 35,734, an average which has fallen by eight percent over the past week. Since January 6, healthcare workers have administered 1,946,639 vaccinations against the disease in the Netherlands.

Meanwhile, a two percent decline in the Covid-19 hospital patient total brought the figure back down below two thousand, patient coordination office LCPS said. There were 1,992 people with the disease in care on Wednesday afternoon, including 1,424 in regular care and 568 in intensive care.

Despite the decrease, the total remained four percent higher than a week ago. However new hospitalizations were about seven percent below the moving average, with 194 new Covid-19 patients admitted into regular care and 36 others sent to intensive care over the past 24 hours.

The RIVM also said that the deaths of 47 more people were caused by the coronavirus disease. That shifted the moving average up to 31. Nevertheless, deaths from Covid-19 are down 16 percent this week with 97 reported since Monday.

To date, 16,165 people in the Netherlands have died from Covid-19. People in the country have tested positive for SARS-CoV-2 a total of 1,173,487 times.