Week's Covid vaccine forecast cut 16%; Infection avg. up 24 straight days

The Ministry of Health reduced its projected number of Covid-19 vaccines to be administered this calendar week from 514,005 down to 433,394, equivalent to a 16 percent reduction. The estimate was revised down even as healthcare workers gave 72,377 jabs on Wednesday, the most in a single day since the vaccination campaign began nearly three months ago.

Over the past seven days, the average has been 50,457 injections daily. So far this calendar week, nearly 199 thousand shots have been administered. A total of 2,577,660 vaccine doses have been used since January 6, enough to give at least partially protect 12 percent of the adult population. Around 4.9 percent of adults have been fully protected.

That put the Netherlands in 24th place for first vaccine uptake among 30 European Union and European Economic Area countries. It was in 25th place for the percentage of adults who were fully protected against Covid-19, based on data provided by Dutch public health agency RIVM to the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control.

On Thursday, the RIVM also said that 7,882 more people tested positive for the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus infection. That pushed the seven-day moving average up for the 24th day in a row. The average stood at 7,475, the highest in 81 days.

For the first time this year, over four hundred infections were reported in Amsterdam (403), which topped municipalities on Thursday. The capital's moving average rose to 330, with only Rotterdam's higher at 353. The Hague ranked third with an average of 249 after posting 328 infections for the day, the most since mid-December.

There was a slight decrease in the Covid-19 hospital patient total, which fell to 2,327. Still, the number of patients in intensive care rose by seven to 688 and remained at levels from mid-January. There were 1,639 more patients in regular care, a net decrease of 14.

The combined hospital total was still six percent higher than a week ago. It suggests there will be over 2,450 patients with the coronavirus disease in hospital care next week, especially as the average number of daily hospitalizations for Covid-19 continued to climb towards 300, an eight percent gain in a week.

Deaths from Covid-19 remained low, with 22 new reported fatal outcomes pushing this week's total to 97. That reflected a 19 percent drop from the same period last week. Some 16,559 people in the Netherlands are known to have died from the disease.

People have tested positive for the SARS-CoV-2 infection 1,280,443 times since the end of February 2020.