Weekly coronavirus infections down 44%; "Peak reached in hospital admissions"
The number of positive tests for the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus infections continues to fall rapidly. In the past week, the RIVM received 21,005 reports of a positive test, the health institute said in their weekly report. That is a decrease of almost 44 percent compared to the seven days before. Then there were 37,343 new cases, which also was 46 percent less than the week before.
“The percentage of tests with a positive result from the GGD test sites also decreased from 13.6% to 12.4% of the tests,” according to the institute’s weekly report. The number of people who scheduled their own coronavirus tests with the GGD also fell by 36 percent, down to 166 thousand.
Per capita infections in the Netherlands fell to 121 positive coronavirus tests per 100 thousand residents. “The number of reports decreased across all age groups and in all regions,” the RIVM said.
The number of positive tests is falling in every age group, but especially among young adults. A few weeks ago, 1,852 out of every 100 thousand people aged 18 to 24 tested positive. Last week it was 325 out of 100,000. Among 25- to 29-year-olds, the relative number of positive tests dropped from 915 to 215 out of every 100 thousand residents.
The basic reproduction (R) number also dropped a bit. The number indicates how fast or slow the coronavirus is spreading. That number stood at 0.8 last Tuesday, and 0.7 last Friday. Now it has dipped to 0.69, the lowest recorded level since June 1 last year. A value of 0.69 means that a group of one hundred coronavirus patients infects an average of 69 others, who in turn transmit the virus to about 48 others, who then infect 33 people.
The group of new cases is getting smaller and smaller suggesting how the outbreak may slowly die down. A few weeks ago during the Delta variant surge in July, the number was at 3, meaning 100 people infected 300 others. That was just the highest level ever.
To date, people have tested positive for the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus infection 1,872,093 times.
Vaccination status of infected people shows 11.5 percent were fully vaccinated
Out of the 182 thousand people who tested positive in July, just over 150 thousand shared details about their Covid-19 vaccination status. It showed that 11.5 percent, over 17,200 people, were fully vaccinated when they tested positive for the coronavirus infection.
Around 63,500 were at least partially vaccinated against the disease when they were diagnosed with the infection. Roughly 69,500 were completely unvaccinated against Covid-19.
Weekly coronavirus hospitalizations down four percent; “Peak reached”
The number of people who end up in hospital because of the coronavirus is no longer increasing. In the past week, 541 people were admitted, the RIVM reports in its weekly figures, which aggregates data for the seven days ending on Tuesday morning.
A week ago there were 564 hospital admissions, the finalized data showed. That means hospitalizations fell by about four percent. The number of people who ended up in intensive care did increase from 115 to 130.
The RIVM said that a “peak seems to have been reached in hospital admissions.”
There are still considerably more admissions than in earlier weeks. At the end of June and the beginning of July, about fifty to a hundred people a week ended up in a hospital.
Some 13,133 people in the Netherlands have been treated in intensive care units for Covid-19, with a 72 percent survival rate. About 58,917 have been treated in a regular care hospital ward, with an 87 percent survival rate.
The number of deaths from coronavirus rose slightly last week, from 21 to 28. That is comparable to the situation in mid-June. But it dwarfs at the height of the latest wave. At the turn of the year, just before the start of the vaccination campaign, there were more than 100 reports of deaths per day.
The RIVM is not necessarily notified of all deaths caused by Covid-19, but the country’s national statistics office, CBS, is notified of the cause of death for all people in the Netherlands. An analysis of data from both organizations showed that from the start of the pandemic through March 2021 the CBS had been notified of about 12 thousand more Covid-19 deaths than the RIVM, meaning about 30 thousand people have died from the disease thus far.