updateUnlike in the previous two years, a real autumn wave of the coronavirus does not seem to be forthcoming this year, at least for the time being. After a short recovery after the summer, the number of infections shows a downward trend again. The number of infected people is also decreasing in nursing homes.
This is apparent from the latest weekly figures, which the RIVM has just published. Nearly 20 percent fewer people reported to the GGD last week than a week earlier. The number of positive tests fell slightly more, by 22 percent from 22,688 to 17,623 per week. The number of people reporting complaints in the RIVM’s Infection Radar also decreased. The reproduction number was between 0.85 and 0.97 on October 11, the most recent date for which it could be calculated. This indicates that fewer people are infected each day than the day before.
In hospitals, the number of admissions did not decrease, but remained more or less stable. In intensive care, the number of patients with corona is still very low compared to the waves of 2020, 2021 and last winter. 55 people are now lying there because of the corona virus, according to figures from the National Coordination Center for Patients Spreading (LCPS).
Variants
The omikron type of the virus is still the dominant variant in the Netherlands. It came up in the weeks before Christmas last year and then caused great panic. The cabinet immediately announced a lockdown. In the end, the number of hospital admissions caused by the omikron variant was relatively not that bad: the new variant infected a great many Dutch people in record time, but it made sick ‘mildly’ than its predecessors.
The omikron variant is now present in all kinds of subtypes in the Netherlands. Every week, RIVM looks at which subvariants are emerging and disappearing, in order to be able to predict which direction the virus will take. At the moment, however, that is very difficult, the RIVM writes. A number of types of omikron, going by names like BF.7, BQ.1 and BQ1.1, have emerged in recent weeks, but none of these mutations have managed to become really dominant so far. “Long-term forecasts are not possible due to the current co-circulation of these variants,” the RIVM writes.
It is also important for the effectiveness of vaccines which variant of the virus is the most dominant. Vaccines are developed with specific variants of the virus in mind. The vaccines that are now being administered in the Netherlands have been tested with an early variant of omikron, but not with the variants that are now most dominant in the Netherlands.
Old stock
Pfizer has now also launched a vaccine that protects against the current dominant variant. The Department of Health has also ordered some of these vaccines, this site recently reported, but is running out of old stock first. The ministry states that these vaccines also protect well against the new sub-variants. The RIVM also expresses this expectation.
About half a million repeat shots were taken by the RIVM in the past week. That brings the total to almost 2.5 million refresher vaccinations. More than half of Dutch people over the age of seventy have now visited the GGD.
The percentages are even lower in younger age groups. The repeat vaccination is now available for all birth years up to and including 2000. Earlier research by the RIVM showed that not all people who previously opted for vaccination are now also planning to do so. 28 percent doubt or refrain from doing so. That willingness could grow if a new variant emerges that makes people sicker than omikron, or if healthcare were again overloaded by the corona pandemic.
More than 80 percent of all Dutch people aged twelve years and older have had at least one shot against the corona virus.
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