Netherlands records its 5 millionth coronavirus infection

The number of positive coronavirus tests in the Netherlands topped 5 million on Tuesday. The counter now stands at 5,350,048 confirmed infections.

Until Monday, the National Institute for Public Health and the Environment (RIVM) had registered 4,969,660 positive tests. Between Monday morning and Tuesday morning, hundreds of thousands of backlogged infection results were entered into the institute’s database, bringing the total on Tuesday far above 5 million. Considering the average number of daily infections is about 87,000, the 5 millionth infection was likely diagnosed on Friday.

It took about two weeks to diagnose 1 million positive tests, a new record. On January 25, the milestone of 4 million positive tests was reached.

The coronavirus was first diagnosed in the Netherlands on February 27, 2020. The first patient was a man from Loon op Zand in Noord-Brabant, who had become infected during a work trip to Italy. It took almost a year for the millionth positive test to be registered, though testing was not widely available until June 2020. It took about eight months to get from 1 million to 2 million infections. About 3 months later, last December, an infection was confirmed for the 3 millionth time. Another million cases was added in the month that followed.

Amsterdam has the most coronavirus cases out of all Dutch municipalities. In the capital, 291,416 positive tests were registered. Rotterdam follows with 227,884 confirmed infections. The Hague has 166,863 coronavirus infections and 118,558 were found in Utrecht.

This is followed by Tilburg (76,414), Eindhoven (69,845), Almere (67,777), Breda (58,710), Groningen (56,171) and Nijmegen (52,763), according to corrected data. Schiermonnikoog closes the table with just 110 confirmed infections among its residents, though only about 930 people live on the island.