Dutch Covid hospital total falls 19% in a week; Sharp drop in known infections

Hospitals in the Netherlands were treating 664 patients with Covid-19 on Tuesday, 19 percent fewer than a week earlier. Data from the patient coordination service, LCPS, showed that average hospitalizations connected to the disease also began to fall after reaching a recent peak on January 2. Additionally, new infections diagnosed ing the past seven days by healthcare services, and not from self-test kits, fell below 4,500 to the lowest point since June 2021.

The 664 patients included 628 people in regular care wards and 47 others in intensive care units. Some 118 people with the disease were admitted to hospitals each of the past seven days, the LCPS said. That includes three sent directly to an ICU. The hospitalizations fell by nearly 27 percent since last Tuesday, when the average was 161 new patients per day, including eight sent to intensive care.

The LCPS said it expected total Covid-19 hospitalization figures to continue to fall in the coming weeks. However, there is a chance that ICU admissions could rise, but it should remain relatively stable. A similar reduction was also shown in RIVM figures for the last calendar week, where 527 people were admitted, compared to 623 people in the last week of 2022.

A total of 4,436 people tested positive for the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus, the RIVM said based on official data that does not include self-testing. That total, measured during the seven-day period through Tuesday morning, dropped 29 percent to the lowest point in about 80 weeks. Testing figures also fell sharply from 5,404 to 4,248 during the last calendar week.

Waste water monitoring also found a reduction of coronavirus particles in sewage. In the seven day period ending on January 1, "the national average number of virus particles in sewage water fell by 14% compared to the previous week," the RIVM said. This showed signs of falling even further at the start of the new year.

The BQ.1 subvariant of Omicron variant BA.5 remained the most commonly found, and was responsible for the most infections in the Netherlands for the fourth straight week. "More recombinants -variants that combine properties of different virus variants- and BA.2 variants were also found, in particular the BA.2.75 and its subvariants." The increasing presence of the XBB.1.5 subvariant was also observed.

About 5.57 percent of surveyed people reported having symptoms similar to Covid-19 during the first week of 2023, the RIVM said. That fell from 6.7 percent the previous week. Respondents who tested positive for the coronavirus fell from 1.8 percent to 1.3 percent.

The basic reproduction (R) value ticked up slightly from 0.86 to 0.90 on December 27. That means that 100 people contagious with the coronavirus infected 90 others, who then went on to spread the virus to another 81 individuals. When the R-value remains below 1.00, the number of weekly infections is expected to fall.