Covid hospitalizations down 35% in a week

In the past week, 448 people were hospitalized with the coronavirus in the Netherlands, 35 percent less than the week before. The number of new admissions to intensive care units due to Covid-19 dropped by 29 percent to 42, National Institute for Public Health and the Environment (RIVM) reported on Tuesday.

The RIVM’s hospitalization data comes from Stichting NICE, which monitors the status of intensive care units. Their data is usually considered preliminary and can be revised upwards as the week progresses.

As of Monday evening, there were just under a thousand patients with Covid-19 in Dutch hospitals. That includes 81 people in intensive care units, and 916 in other departments, according to the LCPS. A week earlier, there were 89 patients in an ICU and 1,273 in regular care wards.

The number of people who tested positive for the coronavirus at GGD test locations fell sharply last week. The RIVM received 16,504 reports of positive tests over the past week. A week earlier, there were almost 25,000, and the week before that, nearly 67,000. A few weeks ago, the government scrapped the official advice to get a positive self-test confirmed by the GGD.

The number of tests done also plummeted. A total of 24,755 people went to get tested at a GGD location last week, compared to over 41,000 the week before. Just a week earlier, GGD employees did 110,000 tests.

The RIVM received 66 reports about people who died as a result of a coronavirus infection. A week earlier, there were 52.

The basic reproduction (R) value, which indicates how fast the coronavirus spreads, fell to 0.64. That means that a group of 100 people with the coronavirus infects an average of 64 others. They transmit the virus to 41 people, who then infect 26 others. With each step, the group of people who become infected becomes smaller and smaller. Last week the reproduction number was still 0.71.