The number of positive coronavirus tests increased by 6% in the second week of April, scotching hopes of an early end to the lockdown, according to the public health agency RIVM’s latest bulletin.

The figures also showed the proportion of positive tests increasing from 8.9% to 9.6% in the past week, while the provinces of Brabant, Limburg and Zuid-Holland had the highest rate of infections.

Admissions to hospital and intensive care units were more or less unchanged, but the number of deaths reported was up by more than 20% from 142 to 174.

The reproductive number R dipped below 1 for the first time since the end of February at 0.97, but the most recent measurement is for March 29, before the latest upswing in infections. During the Easter week the number of positive tests declined by around 7%.

Susan Hof, head of the RIVM’s centre for epidemiology and surveillance, told NOS: ‘We see this as a very concerning situation where the number of infections is still high and doesn’t seem to be declining. We’re on a very high plateau and waiting for the moment when it starts to fall again.’

Altogether 51,240 positive tests were recorded in the seven days to April 13, compared to 48,186 a week earlier, an increase of 6.3%. That was despite a drop in the number of tests taken at health board facilities from 496,821 to 488,750.

The rise in cases was concentrated in the 15 to 19 age group and people in their mid-forties to mid-fifties, where infections increased by between 12% and 17%. In the over-80 population, who were the first to be vaccinated, there was a 15% decline in positive tests.

Among the 25 health board regions the number of infections per 100,000 people ranged from 175.8 in Groningen to 451.3 in Zuid-Holland-Zuid.

The daily figures showed another 6,797 infections were recorded on Tuesday, 22.7% higher than the level a week earlier. The number of Covid-19 patients in hospital fell by 28 in the last 24 hours to 2,554, while intensive care occupancy was unchanged at 794.