The number of new corona cases continues to fall. Between Thursday morning and Friday morning, 17,562 positive tests were registered. That is the lowest number since November 14, almost a month ago.
In the past seven days, the National Institute for Public Health and the Environment (RIVM) report that the coronavirus has been found in humans 140,208 times. That is 7 percent less than in the previous week. It is the largest weekly decline since September 30, before the start of the current wave.
On average, it amounts to 20,030 positive tests per day. That is the lowest level since November 20, three weeks ago.
Amsterdam had 652 positive tests, Rotterdam 630 and The Hague 551. This is followed by Utrecht (459), Amersfoort (249) and Apeldoorn (247). Only on Ameland and Vlieland no one tested positive.
More kill
The number of deaths from the coronavirus continues to rise. In the past day, RIVM received 85 reports that corona patients have died as a result of the infection. That is the highest number since February 23. Eight residents of Maastricht are among the dead. In addition, the municipalities of Rotterdam, Utrecht, Haarlem and Berg en Dal each had four reports of deaths. The fact that the deaths of these people have now been reported does not mean that they have died in the past day.
In the past seven days, 419 deaths have been reported, an average of about 60 per day. That is the highest level since February 18.
The total number of deaths from the corona virus rises to above 20,000 on Friday. Since the start of the epidemic in February last year, at least 20,004 people have died from the virus. The actual number is higher.
R-number
The reproduction number went up a fraction, from 0.95 to 0.97. This means it remains below 1. This indicates that the virus has difficulty infecting new people. The lower it gets, the faster the number of cases falls.
Omikron
The Omikron variant of the coronavirus has now been diagnosed in eighty people in the Netherlands. This is reported by the RIVM. Last Tuesday the counter stood at 36 confirmed cases. Up to Saturday, twenty infections were known.
The Omikron variant had already been found in 18 people who arrived by plane on November 26 from South Africa, the country where the new virus version was first identified.
At least 53 other people who have recently been to southern Africa have the Omikron variant among the members. Furthermore, the virus version has been identified in three people who have had contact with people in whom Omikron has been found before.
Among those who tested positive are also six people “with no direct or indirect link with southern Africa”. That means that they must have contracted it in a different way, perhaps within the Netherlands.
RIVM takes into account that Omikron will become the dominant variant in the Netherlands. That is still the Delta variant, which accounts for just under 100 percent of all positive tests.
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By: Editors
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