Weekly coronavirus figures up 34% as 14% test positive; RIVM says it's "stabilizing"

Just under 14.1 percent of people who scheduled their own coronavirus test during the past seven days was diagnosed with the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus infection, the third straight week that rate increased. Coronavirus infections also rose by 34 percent for the seven-day period, which ended at 10 a.m. on Tuesday.

A total of 69,731 people tested positive for the infection, equivalent to about 399 per 100 thousand residents. Increases were seen across all age groups and people living in all regions of the country. By comparison, 13.4 percent of those tested the previous week were diagnosed with the infection, equivalent to nearly 52 thousand people. Testing increased by about a quarter.

"Most positive tests are, just like in previous weeks, in the age group of 18 to 24 years," the RIVM said on Tuesday. "This is followed by the age groups from 13 to 17 years and 25 to 29 years with the most positive tests per 100,000 inhabitants."

However, those from 18 to 24 only showed a four percent increase in positive coronavirus tests. This rate of increase was far higher for every other age group.

"It will become clear in the coming week whether the stabilization in the number of reports of people with a positive test in the last few days will be converted into a decrease," the RIVM said. The basic reproduction (R) value of the virus fell by July 5 from 2.17 to 1.75, meaning that 100 contagious people were likely to infect 175 others.

The most infections per capita were found in residents of Amsterdam-Amstelland, with 782 testing positive per 100 thousand residents. That was followed by Kennemerland (543) and Rotterdam-Rijnmond (518). The regions performing the best were Drenthe (170) and Zeeland (199).

Roughly six percent of those testing positive entered the Netherlands from another country within 14 days of their test. By far the most people had visited Spain (1,241), but also high figures were reported in people entering the Netherlands from Greece (481), France (414), Belgium (410) and Germany (307).

So far this month, nearly 127 thousand people have tested positive for the viral infection, with authorities knowing the vaccination status of nearly 80 percent of them. Of that group, just over 9,200 people who tested positive for the coronavirus were considered fully vaccinated against Covid-19 at the time. Over 14,200 were at least partially vaccinated against the disease.

The RIVM also released more information about the 205 people admitted to the hospital with Covid-19 last week, a 141-percent increase which included 31 intensive care admissions. New Covid-19 patients were most likely to be between the ages of 40-59 (70), followed by 20-39 (66), 60-79 (37), over 80 (24) and 0-19 (8).

"The effect of the vaccination campaign is clearly visible in the age distribution of people admitted to hospital with COVID-19, both in the ward and in the ICU," the RIVM said. "Until mid-May, more than half of people hospitalized with COVID-19 were over 60 years old."

Sixteen of those sent to ICU were between 40 and 59. Nine were between 20 and 39, while six were aged 60-79.

To date, people have tested positive for the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus 1,814,143 times. An estimated 30 thousand people have died from Covid-19, including 17,783 fatalities reported to the RIVM.

The survival rate for those entering intensive care for treatment of Covid-19 was just under 72 percent, with 12,919 treated in the ICU since the start of the pandemic. Those treated in regular care wards survived less than 87 percent of the time, with 58,287 admitted in total.