Covid-related hospital admissions down 33% in a week

After the number of positive coronavirus tests, the number of hospital admissions due to the coronavirus is now also falling faster. In the past week, 431 people’s complaints got so bad that they needed hospital treatment, compared to 647 the week before. That means hospitals' coronavirus intake has fallen by 33.4 percent in a week.

Another week earlier, 742 people were admitted due to the coronavirus. At 431, coronavirus admissions are the lowest since mid-June, six weeks ago.

The people who were admitted earlier in the summer wave are now starting to leave the hospital, and the intensive care units and regular wards are slowly emptying as a result.

The National Institute for Public Health and the Environment (RIVM) registered 21,680 positive tests in the past week. That is almost a quarter less than in the previous week. The number of confirmed infections has fallen for the third week in a row. The summer wave is weakening and is back at the mid-June level.

The figures are not complete. The RIVM only registered tests done by the GGD locations. Self-tests are not included. But the number of people who go to a test location to get confirmation of a self-test has also been falling for weeks. Just over 28,000 got tested for that reason last week, down from nearly 34,000 the week before and about 50,000 before that. Moreover, these tests are less likely to reveal an infection. Last week, two out of three tests were positive. That is the lowest percentage in seven weeks.

The RIVM also monitors the virus in other ways, for example, by measuring the amount of virus particles in sewage water. There are also fewer and fewer traces of the coronavirus. The number of positive tests is also falling in nursing homes. Their residents generally do not go on holiday, so the summer vacation cannot influence those figures.