4,036 people in the Netherlands have been tested positive for the corona virus in the past week, Jaap van Dissel, director of the National Institute for Public Health and the Environment (RIVM), reports on Tuesday during a technical briefing in the Lower House. It is an increase of 1,448 compared to the 2,588 infections reported last week.
This is an increase of 56 percent. On Monday, 630 new infections were reported. That was the largest increase in 24 hours since the end of April. On Tuesday, 623 were added. However, much more is being tested now than in April.
Also, 38 COVID-19 patients were hospitalized in the past week, 6 fewer a week earlier. Nine people have died as a result of the coronavirus, three more than last week.
Hospital admissions are likely to lag behind because many of the positively tested people are young people. A quarter of the positively tested persons are between 20 and 29 years old. They generally end up in hospital less often. However, a large number of infected youngsters can lead to problems in the long term, because they can infect their parents or grandparents, among other things. Half of the corona patients admitted to hospital are over the age of 60.
Not all patients have tested positive, hospitalized, or died in the past week: some patients are not reported until later. The actual number of infections is also probably higher, because not everyone with complaints can be tested.
Six times more tests scheduled after press conference
In the week of July 27 to August 2, 101,905 people had themselves tested. Last week there were almost a hundred thousand. This concerns a decrease of about three thousand people tested. After the press conference of Prime Minister Mark Rutte Thursday evening up to six times as many corona tests scheduled as on a normal evening. Two thousand people made an appointment within an hour.
The percentage of positive tests increased to 3.6. Last week that was 2.3 percent. The reproduction number is 1.30, compared to 1.20 a week earlier. “This means that 100 people who are infected with the new corona virus together lead to 130 other people who become infected,” explains the RIVM.
According to Van Dissel, no source and contact research was carried out in 30 percent of the infected persons. Until last week, this was always the case for less than 10 percent of the infected people, but due to the increase in the number of infections and staff shortages, the research is now increasingly unsuccessful.
Large regional differences in the number of infections
There are large regional differences in the number of reports. Most reports come from South Holland, just like a week earlier. A high number of infections was also reported in Noord-Holland and Noord-Brabant. The percentage of positive tests is the same as last week in almost all regions.
There are currently 379 active clusters in the Netherlands known. That is an increase of 137 clusters of three or more related infections.
405 people tested positive were abroad in the fourteen days before their infection was diagnosed. 22 percent have been in France, 16 percent in Spain, 10 percent in Germany, 9 percent in Belgium and 7.4 percent in Turkey and Malta. This does not mean that they have all been infected abroad.
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