This week 1 in 100 Dutch people tested positive, on Sunday 32 thousand new reports
This week, 1,021 infections per 100 thousand inhabitants were reported in the Netherlands, more than 1 in 100 inhabitants received a positive test result. On Sunday, RIVM reported 32,581 infections. Only last Friday was the number of reports higher, but then there were many follow-up reports due to a malfunction earlier in the week at the GGD. The daily figures can fluctuate strongly, but the weekly figures also show a rapid increase. Last week, an average of 25,390 infections per day were reported, an increase of 76 percent compared to the week before. The confirmed infection rate is highest in the Amsterdam-Amstelland security region, where more than 1,700 infections per 100 thousand inhabitants were reported this week. In Limburg, where the contamination figures were very high in previous waves, the fewest positive tests are currently being reported.
More than a third of GGD tests positive
The increase in the number of reports is not due to more testing. The number of tests at the GGDs is increasing this week, from 48 to 72 thousand per day, but the number of reports is rising faster. A large part of the tests performed turned out to be positive, almost 35 percent. This can mean that many infections go undetected, and also that many visitors to the test street are there to confirm a positive self-test.
Fewer and fewer new corona patients in intensive care in the Netherlands
With an average of 17 corona patients per day, the number of IC admissions is 28 percent less than last week, at the lowest level since the end of October. In the nursing wards, admissions fell less quickly, by 14 percent on a weekly basis to 126 admissions per day. The decline seems to have stopped, especially in the last few days. This may be because the omikron variant leads to less severe symptoms, so that relatively fewer patients end up in the ICU. The Argos consortium, a collaboration between the Amsterdam GGD and the Amsterdam UMC, reported that patients with omikron who report to the emergency room are admitted to hospital less often than patients with another variant. The researchers call the results encouraging, but warn that only a small study has been conducted among 34 patients, and that omikron is currently mainly circulating among young people.