New coronavirus infections continue to fall, dipping to five-week low

The number of positive coronavirus tests reported by health authorities in the Netherlands fell for the third week in a row, and the situation in the hospitals is also getting quieter. The autumn wave is weakening, due to "built-up immunity" from both booster vaccinations and by people who still have antibodies after the summer wave of infections, according to the RIVM. The recent autumn holidays in the central and southern portion of the country did not seem to play a role in the decrease, as the number of infections is also falling in nursing homes, and the elderly residents there do not generally go on holiday.

The RIVM registered 12,311 positive tests in the past seven days. That is 30 percent less than a week earlier, and that marks the fastest decline since the beginning of August, twelve weeks ago. The number of infections this past week was the lowest reported by the RIVM since the seven-day period ending on 27 September.

Between Sunday morning and Monday morning, 1,101 people learned that they were infected with the coronavirus. That is the lowest daily figure since 19 September, before the start of the autumn wave. Nearly 2,000 infections came to light during the 24 hour period ending on Tuesday morning. Amsterdam leads the list with 87 infections, followed by Rotterdam (82), The Hague (62), Apeldoorn (41) and Utrecht (36).

In the past calendar week, 469 people were hospitalized because of their Covid-19 health symptoms, the lowest influx in five weeks. Compared to the week before, the number of hospital admissions fell by almost 32 percent.

Since September, the government has been using a status bar it calls the "coronavirus thermometer" to monitor the state of the pandemic as a follow-up to its risk level assignments. That thermometer still remains at position two, the second lowest level. There is no justification to reduce it further, because there are still relatively many infections and because vulnerable groups continue to be at an increased risk, according to the RIVM. The thermometer has a total of four positions.

It is also becoming quieter at the branches of the GGD municipal health service. Nearly 17,000 people went to a test site last week to receive an official test result. That is also the lowest number in five weeks. Of those tests, 57.8 percent were positive, the lowest positivity rate since the end of May.

The basic reproduction (R) number fell to its lowest level since August 2. It now stands at 0.82. That means that an average group of one hundred infected people on 18 October transmitted the coronavirus to 82 others. They then infected 67 people, who passed the virus on to 55 individuals. When the R-number is below 1.00, the projected number of infections should continue to reduce.