The RIVM takes into account that the third corona wave will last shorter. The number of admissions to intensive care units (ICs) will also be less high at the peak than previously expected. That reports News hour Monday evening on the basis of a new calculation by the RIVM, which according to its own words has inspected the current affairs section.
The new prognosis is said to have been discussed by the RIVM on Friday and will be revealed on Wednesday during a briefing of the institute in the Lower House.
About three weeks ago, the RIVM calculated that the peak of the third wave would be somewhere around 1 May. A new graph would now show that the RIVM expects that peak sometime in mid-April, according to this News hour.
At that peak time, according to estimates by the RIVM, approximately eight hundred corona patients will be on the ICs. The institute previously reported a much higher peak of no less than fourteen hundred people with the corona virus on the ICs.
Number of infections in recent weeks ‘not flown out of the bend’
Marc Bonten, medical microbiologist at UMC Utrecht and leading member of the Outbreak Management Team (OMT), said in News hour that the new prognosis is a result of the number of infections that “have not flown out of the bend” in recent weeks.
He does, however, make a “few comments” on the latest expectation, which he believes will only come true if many people are vaccinated in the coming weeks and the cabinet does not implement any relaxation. In addition, people must continue to comply with the corona measures as well as possible, says Bonten.
In the eyes of the OMT member, it is currently still too early for easing, because, among other things, the R-number is still above 1.
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