Article Summary
Although visibility is limited due to the lack of figures, you can see that the peak in the Netherlands was reached last week. The descent will start quickly and all measures can be lifted immediately.
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Read full article: The peak has passed, the descent has begun
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The Number Fog
Due to a combination of reasons, there is a lack of figures in the collection and presentation of the key figures of the Corona developments in the Netherlands. As a result, there is no good overview of the actual developments and Van Dissel/Wallinga, OMT members and Rutte/Kuipers can continue to pretend that we are still in alarm phase 3 without being contradicted.
In addition, it is striking how time and again figures are chosen that best suit the insistence on measures. The pressure in the ICUs, the pressure in the hospitals, the number of positive tests, just choose what suits you! And if the relevant part develops favourably, then they add the time element: “in three weeks”, “mid-March”…..
But if you look through the fog and understand how the numbers are created and what they mean, you can see that we had a kind of peak during the past week, just like the one we had in Belgium a week earlier.
I will discuss it separately regarding the number of positive tests and the pressure in the hospitals.
Decrease of the positive tests
The testing policy in the Netherlands, the testing capacity and the major problems at RIVM in processing the results mean that you cannot really keep a finger on the pulse of how the virus circulates in society.
At the moment we see that about half of everyone who comes to the GGD test streets already has a positive rapid test result. They want to get a recovery certificate for their QR code / access pass. That is why we now see positive percentages of around 60%. (With this the GGD test street has become the place where you can meet the most people who are spreading the virus at that time).
Because the information from the GGD test street has to be transferred MANUALLY from the GGD computer system to that of the RIVM and has a maximum number, RIVM now has a backlog of 186,000 positive tests, which have yet to be entered. That will be partly made up today, because that always happens on the day before and the day of the RIVM weekly report (Tuesday).
As a result, the RIVM daily figure will exceed 100,000 today or tomorrow. Perhaps even with a “new record”. But any medium that communicates this figure gives itself a license of inability.
And the irony is, this record new daily record comes at a time when the numbers have turned.
Because I have been closely following the figures – and in particular those of the GGD – for some time now and consider them more important than those of the RIVM itself, I note that the peak in the increase in the number of infections was around last weekend and that we are now busy on the way down.
This can be deduced from the fact that last Friday, for the first time since the end of December, the number of positive tests was lower than exactly a week earlier (-6%), while it can also be established that the crowds in the appointment center of the GGD are decreasing.
Due to the backlog of 186,000 positive tests, an analysis by age or region via the RIVM figures does not yet say anything. But the GGD figures for the Amsterdam-Amstelland region do show a good picture. (and remember that in that region Omikron first became dominant).
In yellow the daily results and in blue the seven-day average. It is clearly visible that the highest point was reached on January 29, followed by a decline, which accelerated on February 3 and 4. Be aware that the figures are stable figures around January 31, because there was a maximum capacity and waiting times.
A January 29 high in Amsterdam in testing indicates that the true peak of infections has been around January 25 in Amsterdam.
Because the GGD figures do not provide an overview of age, an attempt should be made to get an indication of this from the lagging RIVM figures. If you then look, you will see that in the groups where the increase was greatest, there is now a decrease. We saw the increase most strongly (around New Year’s Eve) in the group 20-29 years, but soon after we saw it in the two age groups under 20 years: the students.
It is very clear that the “stock” of young people who can still be infected is rapidly decreasing and that is why you get those (rapidly) declining figures.
This will also happen with some delay in the age groups between 30 and 60 years. There had been no exponential increase in the groups over the age of 60, so that no sharp decrease can be expected in the coming period.
In Belgium you see the same pattern, but with more than a week ahead. At week 4, the positive tests in the group under 20 years of age decreased by 20%. But it increased even more among the age groups above 50 years. In absolute terms, the number of positive tests among the young was much greater than among the elderly. Although the figures for week 5 are not yet complete, you can see an acceleration of that trend. On February 2, there was a drop of almost 40% compared to the week before.
It is important to realize that this happened in Belgium with a lighter set of measures than in the Netherlands. Especially given the very high degree of contagiousness of Omikron, measures will at most cause a delay of a few days from a peak.
But due to the large backlogs at RIVM and because more tests are always carried out on Mondays than in the weekend before, I think there is a good chance that tomorrow’s weekly report from RIVM will at most speak of a stabilization, but certainly not yet. of the cover, which is in fact already there.
Pressure on the hospitals
The figures in hospitals are developing much more favorably than predicted by the doom scenarios of the RIVM and the OMT.
While all the knowledge had been available for weeks to expect this pattern, the morbid RIVM model kept the country captive with downright ridiculous scenarios. But even now that nothing has come of it, given the statements of Van Dissel, Wallinga and various OMT members, such as Kluytmans and Bonten, we still cannot free ourselves from their grip.
I also notice that they regularly move the goalposts during the match. The ICUs will be overflowing with patients, the hospitals will fill up, there will be too few healthcare staff. But you never notice any feeling among those OMT members about what the great damage is of the measures that they want to maintain for an imaginary danger.
IC occupancy is still close to its lowest level reached in the past two months (slightly above 200). Every IC in the Netherlands receives a new Covid patient on average once every six days. (You read that right, this is not a calculation error). Those new Omikron patients stay a lot shorter than the Delta patients. Our Green Team member Egbert Hidding keeps track of the in and out figures of the hospitals and IC on a daily basis. And he estimates that the length of stay in the ICU of Omikron patients is less than half that of Delta patients.
In the ICs you have the problem of a number of people who lie for a very long time. Something that has happened significantly more at Delta than will happen at Omikron. Partly because of this, around 40% of the patients in the ICUs may now be infected with Delta.
Together with the much smaller chance that an infected person will end up in the ICU, it is expected that even an occupation of 300 Covid patients in the ICU in the next two months is unlikely.
The admission of Covid patients to the clinic will still increase, but this will be strongly driven by the group that is admitted WITH Covid and less by the group that ended up in hospital BY Covid.
But because the median length of stay has fallen from more than 8 to more than 4, according to Egbert Hidding’s calculation by Omikron, the expected increase in the occupancy in hospitals will not be nearly the drama that we had until last week. presented.
It is almost sad to hear how Van Dissel/Wallinga are using the development of hospital figures in Denmark to be careful about reducing measures in the Netherlands, while Denmark itself lifted all measures on February 1, including the Corona access pass.
Release the brakes!
What I can already see coming is that these favorable developments will be fully attributed to the measures. And that on that basis people will say that we should be careful with easing.
The fact that in many countries, regardless of the measures, we now see a rapid decline after a rapid increase, is conveniently ignored. That on January 25, Prime Minister Rutte announced shivering with nerves that he was going to do something daring: the catering industry and theaters/cinemas open until 10 p.m., while the OMT had recommended 8 p.m., will also be forgotten.
It was and is as has been proclaimed on this site since December. Because of Omikron, everyone who does not have sufficient immunity will be infected by this month at the latest, regardless of what measures you take.
Because the pressure on healthcare does not become too great, there is no longer any reason to continue the measures now.
They cost a lot of money (because of the 130,000 tests per day) and the quarantine rules. They disrupt crucial functions in society (employees sitting at home, while they have few or no symptoms).
And at the same time they do a lot of damage to all kinds of groups in society. Which have been kept unnecessarily short for too long, with all kinds of consequences.
It is about time we cast off the yoke of the permanent prophets of doom.
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