Covid deaths down in third quarter of 2021, but Omicron caused 1.3 million infections in January

The coronavirus caused almost three times fewer deaths in the third quarter of 2021 than in the previous quarter. In January, the Omnicron variant of the virus caused over 1.3 million coronavirus infections. But the number of deaths fell compared to the previous two months.

In July, August, and September 2021, 953 people died of Covid-19, Statistics Netherlands (CBS) reported. In the previous quarter, 2,602 people died of Covid-19. 

It was the second consecutive quarter that the number of coronavirus deaths plummeted. In April, May, and June, the number of deaths was also over three times lower than the previous quarter. The vaccination campaign got underway in those months. Most people over the age of 60 were vaccinated by July. The coronavirus infections were also relatively low in these months, except for a short but high peak in July. 

The declining trend was broken in the fourth quarter, with over a thousand Covid-19 deaths reported in both November and December. 

In January of this year, the public health institute RIVM registered just over 1.3 million positive Covid-19 tests. About 105,000 have not been registered yet. The actual number is therefore above 1.4 million. That means that January had almost the same number of positive tests as July, August, September, October, November, and December combined. 

January now holds the record for most positive Covid-19 tests. The previous record set in November last year - over 510,000 confirmed infections - was already broken by mid-January. 

On average, there were 41,948 positive tests per day in January, but not evenly distributed over the month. In the first seven days, there were an average of 21,441 new cases per day. In the last seven days, 68,342. The level of the epidemic thus tripled in a few weeks. 

Despite the skyrocketing infections, the number of coronavirus deaths is falling. In January, the RIVM reported that 355 people died from a coronavirus infection, compared to 1,511 in December and 1,002 in November.