"Concern": Dutch coronavirus risk level at 2nd worst of three grades

The state of the coronavirus pandemic in the Netherlands is Caution. On Wednesday, the government introduced a new warning system to the Coronavirus Dashboard covering the entire country. It is the successor to the regional risk levels, a system that ended last month.

The new system has three levels of risk, Waakzaam, Zorgelijk, and Ernstig, which the government officially translated to English as Caution, Concern, and Serious. The level is determined every Tuesday based on the seven-day average of Covid-19 hospital admissions and intensive care admissions, based on data from hospital monitor NICE.

The previous regional risk level system also evaluated the situation based on the number of positive coronavirus tests per 100,000 inhabitants, but that is no longer a factor.

The risk level partly determines which measures are necessary to prevent excessive pressure on the healthcare system. Government restrictions are not automatically tightened when the risk level worsens. Likewise, measures are not necessarily relaxed when the risk level improves.

Such a decision also depends partly on the number of beds still available in intensive care units, the severity of the coming flu wave, and the "social and economic context."