Some 13,331 test positive for coronavirus; Covid hospital total falls further

Another 13,331 people were diagnosed with the coronavirus infection between Saturday and Sunday morning. That was the third consecutive day the figure has fallen, bringing the seven day moving average down to 14,314.

The average has gone down for 14 days straight. It was 22 percent lower compared to a week earlier, and 34 percent lower than two Sundays ago.

However, the RIVM and the Outbreak Management Team have raised serious concerns about the Omicron variant of the virus, and its ability to evade someone’s immunity to other variants, which prompted the new hard lockdown implemented on Sunday. The variant is expected to lead to a surge of new infections. It will likely become the dominant variant in Amsterdam by Monday, and the whole of the Netherlands by the end of the year. The capital had 591 new infections on Sunday, the only municipality reporting over 375 that day.

Little is known about how pathogenic the variant is, but the RIVM predicted that even with the hard lockdown it could cause an average of 750 daily hospitalizations. That includes 150 sent to intensive care per day. As it stands, an average of 233 patients were admitted each of the past seven days, including 34 sent directly to intensive care.

There were 2,342 people in hospitals on Sunday, a one percent decrease from Saturday. The figure has fallen every day for a week, and was 16 percent lower compared to last Sunday. A similar drop would bring the total down below 2,000 for the first time in five weeks.

The total includes 628 people in intensive care units, a net decrease of 9 which also takes 26 new admissions into account. The figure also includes 19 patients in German hospitals. The other 1,714 were being treated in regular care wards, a net decrease of 22 even after 146 new patients arrived for treatment.

A total of 1,634 Covid-19 patients were admitted to hospitals this week, down 27 percent compared to the previous week. That includes 237 sent directly to intensive care, down from 292.

With only an evening lockdown, the RIVM projected that 17,500 Covid-19 sufferers would require hospital care, with about 4,250 of them needing intensive care.