Nevertheless, the National Institute for Public Health and the Environment (RIVM) emphasizes that the numbers are still small. “What we’ve seen over the last month is an increase, but the level is still very, very low. It’s now rising from very, very low to slightly less, very, very low,” said Susan van den Hof, head of the Center for Epidemiology and Surveillance of Infectious Diseases of the RIVM.
It is not clear what caused the slight increase. The summer holidays may play a role. “Holidays always help with the spread of viruses,” says Van den Hof.
The number of virus particles in the sewer is rising faster than the number of hospital admissions. This indicates that most people can take it easy at home and have few or no complaints from the corona virus. “We expect there to be more spread in the fall as well. We will also see a surge in the number of seriously ill, but not as high as in the years of the pandemic.”
This is because almost everyone has had corona, has been vaccinated against the virus, or both. People are well protected. That is why Van den Hof expects that corona measures will not be necessary and that healthcare will probably not be overloaded.
The new variant that is now going around is called EG.5. This is an altered version of XBB, which has been dominant lately. The change will likely allow EG.5 to evade human defenses just a bit better, allowing it to spread faster and more easily.
There are no indications that people become sicker from this new subvariant than from other virus variants. The corona vaccine that will be used for the repeat injections next autumn has been specially developed for the XBB variants. This also includes EG.5.
2023-08-15 14:08:31
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