Fewer coronavirus patients taken to hospital last week, positive tests up 2%

Photo: Brandon Hartley

The number of patients admitted to hospital with coronavirus declined by 9.3% in the first week of September, according to the latest weekly report by the RIVM.

The number of positive tests increased by 1.7% to 17,890, which translates to an infection rate of 104 per 100,000 people. However, the proportion of positive results dropped from 13.1% to 10.8% as around 25% more tests were carried out.

The reproductive number R, which indicates how many people each infected person passes the virus on to, dropped below the critical level of 1 to 0.98, as measured on August 23. The delay in the calculation of the R number reflects the incubation period of 5 to 10 days.

In the last week 388 patients were taken to hospital with coronavirus, compared to 428 the week before, while 88 people were admitted to intensive care, 10 fewer than in the previous week.

Another 38 deaths were recorded in the previous seven days, down from 43.

Around the 25 health board (GGD) regions the infection rate ranged from 68.9 per 100,000 in Noord-Holland-Noord to 159.9 in Amsterdam-Amstelland.

More than half (51.6%) of all positive tests were in people under 30, while 13.9% of people who were infected reported having travelled abroad in the last two weeks. Of those whose travel history was recorded, more than a quarter (26.6%) had visited Turkey, with Morocco and Germany accounting for 9.6% and 9.5% respectively.