Nearly 5,000 Covid-19 deaths in first half of 2022, bringing Dutch total towards 45,000

A total of 1,420 people in the Netherlands died of Covid-19 in the second quarter, down from 3,564 coronavirus deaths in the first quarter of 2022. That brings the total number of confirmed Covid-19 deaths since the start of the pandemic to 44,760, Statistics Netherlands (CBS) reported on Friday.

By comparison, 11,304 people died from the coronavirus disease in the first half of 2021. That marks an improvement of 56 percent. The decrease is likely due to the high vaccination rate in the Netherlands and the fact that the omicron variant dominant in the first half of 2022 is less severe than the delta and alpha variants of the coronavirus that were dominant in the first half of last year.

Covid-19 was responsible for 3.5 percent of all deaths during the second quarter of 2022, compared to 8.3 percent in the first quarter. Two-thirds of people who died of Covid-19 in the second quarter were older than 80. Only six percent were younger than 65.

There was excess mortality in the Netherlands every week of April, May, and June, except for the last week of May. Excess mortality means that more people died than expected for a period. The excess mortality was mainly visible among people over the age of 65 and people living in long-term care institutions.