Coronavirus risk ‘severe’ as hospital admissions hit highest level since May

The number of people admitted to hospital with coronavirus has risen to its highest level since the end of May, the RIVM’s latest weekly bulletin showed.

A total of 834 patients were admitted in the seven days to Sunday, up by 31% from last week. The government officially raised its risk level to “severe” on Tuesday now that the average number of admissions per day is above 100.

The official figures also show 140 people were admitted to intensive care, up from 117 a week ago. Another 102 deaths from Covid-19 were reported, compared to 78 last week.

The total number of patients in hospital increased by 100 to 1312 on Tuesday, of whom 240 are being treated in intensive care.

The number of positive tests increased by 39.3% to 53,979, equivalent to 313 out of every 100,000 people. The test positivity rate reached 16.7%, the same level as at the peak of the ‘dansen met Janssen’ wave in July.

Infections rose faster in older age groups, continuing the trend of recent weeks. The weekly increase was below 45% for every age group below 50 but above 45% for every age group over 50.

Around the 25 GGD health board regions the infection rate ranged from 182.8 per 100,000 people in Groningen to 489.1 in Limburg-Noord.

The reproductive number R, which reflects how many other people an infected person passes the virus on to, increased marginally to 1.2 in the week to October 18.