Testing for event access will prevent a few Covid hospitalizations: expert

Mandatory Covid-19 testing before attending large events will prevent an average of 1.6 to 3 coronavirus hospitalizations per day, according to TU Delft researcher Bas Kolen. "On average, this prevents several hundred infections per day," he confirmed after reporting by the Volkskrant. "Whether that's a lot or a little is not up to me."

From Friday, people who want to attend an event with 500 visitors or more must first test negative for Covid-19. Kolen warned that his rough calculations contain some assumptions and uncertainties. For example, it is unclear how many people will go to such large events.

The researcher assumed an average of 50,000 event attendees per day. Previous research showed that events with more than 3,000 attendees would attract an average of 20,000 to 25,000 visitors per day in the coming months. Kolen assumed that about the same number of people would go to events with between 500 and 3,000 visitors. "There are a lot of them, but they are not properly in the picture," Kolen said.

Another uncertainty is precisely how many contagious people are walking around the country. In his calculations, Kolen assumed about 2 percent of the population could pass on the coronavirus to other people.

According to the latest RIVM figures, the total number of coronavirus infections is over 41,000 per day on average. A few hundred avoided coronavirus cases per day are only a fraction of that. Kolen added that some of the people who are at higher risk of serious illness from a coronavirus infection probably wouldn't go looking for risks. "People who are very careful are not going to go to such a big event anytime soon."