Covid patient total back below 800 after 10% drop; Infections fall by 31 percent

Hospitals in the Netherlands were treating 791 patients with Covid-19 on Tuesday afternoon, down 10 percent compared to a week earlier. That brought the patient total below 800 for the first time since July 1, with a recent peak of 1,149 recorded on July 20. Coronavirus infections for the past seven days also showed a drop by nearly a third, falling to the lowest point in nearly two months.

There were 41 patients with Covid-19 in intensive care units in the Netherlands, down from 44 last Tuesday, according to figures from the LCPS. The last time the intensive care total was above 50 was on May 3, nearly 100 days ago. The other 750 patients on Tuesday were in regular care wards, compared to 837 last week.

Figures from the patient coordination service showed that an average of 101 patients with Covid-19 were admitted each of the past seven days, including four sent directly to intensive care. That was 18 percent lower compared to the previous seven days, when 123 patients were admitted on average, with five sent to intensive care daily. The LCPS counts all patients with the coronavirus disease in their statistics, even if their symptoms are mild, as those patients are required to be isolated. This requires more hospital resources.

The RIVM reported a more modest 12 percent reduction in Covid-19 hospitalizations when looking at data from Monday through Sunday. Some 445 people with the disease were admitted during the calendar week, compared to 503 the previous week. The public health institute said ICU admissions fell from 28 to 23.

With all regions of the Netherlands still in the summer school vacation period, coronavirus infections have shown a consistent decline. The past week was no exception, with the RIVM registering the fourth consecutive weekly decrease in new diagnosed infections, which does not include positive self-tests.

Some 14,878 people tested positive for the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus during the seven-day period ending on Tuesday morning. That reflected a 31 percent reduction compared to the week before, when 21,680 tested positive. The new figures brought the number of per capita infections down to 80 per 100,000 residents.

Sewage surveillance also showed a 34 percent fall in coronavirus particulate matter found in sewer water during the last calendar week of July. That showed a further decline by about a fifth during the first few days of August. With many people using coronavirus self-test kits instead of visiting a GGD test center, sewage surveillance has been a crucial element for analyzing the progress of the current coronavirus wave. The analysis during the last week of July showed Gelderland-Zuid as being the area most prevalent for the coronavirus, while that appeared to shift to Limburg-Noord through August 3.

"The BA.5 Omicron variant was detected most often, and the BA.4 variant was again detected less often," the RIVM said. The BA.5 variant likely accounted for over 90 percent of infections already in the second half of July. The relatively new Omicron sub-variant, BA.2.75, also surfaced again in surveillance.

The basic reproduction (R) value also fell again, dipping to 0.81. That means that 100 people contagious with the coronavirus on July 25 likely infected 81 people, who then passed the virus on to another 66 individuals. They then infected 53 others, according to the RIVM's projection. The number of new infections is likely to rise when the R-value is over 1.00, and should fall when the figure is below that benchmark.

Deaths directly linked to Covid-19 rose to 33 over the last seven days, from 25 during the previous week-long period. There is no obligation to report these deaths to the RIVM with urgency, and many of these deaths may have taken place prior to the reporting period.