Fewer people died in the first week of March than would normally be expected, according to new provisional figures from the CBS national statistics office.

While at the peak of the coronavirus crisis at the end of March in 2020, 68% more people died in a week than then usual death rate, now the rate is 9% down on expected. Since mid-February this year, the CBS reckons, fewer people have died in the Netherlands than in a normal year.

From March 1 to March 7 2021, according to the provisional figures, 3,100 people passed away, a drop of 75 on the week before. The fall was particularly marked among people over 80 and those in long-term care facilities, said the CBS.

The effect of the Dutch slow-starting vaccination programme is unclear but last week CBS sociologist Tanja Traag speculated that it is impacting the death rate in these vulnerable groups, which were first on the list for jabs. The government has also said the vaccination is having an effect here.

The CBS records deaths daily but does not immediately receive details on the cause of death. Due to shortages in corona tests last year, it is thought that thousands more people have died from the coronavirus than the official total of 16,127 deaths, which puts the Netherlands at 28^th in the world.

Many of the country’s ‘excess deaths’, according to the CBS, can be attributed to the coronavirus. ‘Excess deaths during the first wave of coronavirus and the first 10 weeks of the second wave are fully caused by death from the new coronavirus,’ it said in the press release.

The Dutch statistics office has already reported that in 2020, thousands more people had actually died from the coronavirus than was officially recorded, although national figures have never been updated to acknowledge this.

DutchNews.nl has asked the CBS for its estimate of the actual total deaths due to coronavirus in the Netherlands since the start of the pandemic, and when the Dutch government will update its coronavirus death figures.