There has been no question of really large-scale testing for some time now

On February 27, 2022, the first case of corona was reported in the Netherlands. After three years, the end of testing and quarantine appears to be very near. The Operations Management Team advised the Cabinet to cancel the large-scale testing. Staying at home with (respiratory) complaints remains the motto, regardless of the virus that causes the disease.

The number of tests had already fallen dramatically in the past year, especially since testing advice was amended in April last year. January 2022 was the busiest month for testing, with nearly 3.5 million exams in GGD. This past January, there were just over 10,000. A significant portion of these tests helped confirm the self-test, with a positive result in about half of the cases.

A small carnival wave is visible in the sewage

The number of positive tests now says almost nothing about the number of Dutch people infected with the coronavirus. But given the number of virus particles in the wastewater, something can be said about this. Coronavirus has been found fairly frequently in Dutch sewers in the past week, as often after the holidays, but at the moment this is nothing compared to previous peaks. Around Christmas, the number of particulate matter in sewers was just below an all-time high (early March 2022), but the number of seriously ill people was much lower.

The coronavirus often leads to hospitalization

Hospital occupancy has risen again, but it is much lower than it was at the end of winter 2021-2022. The hospital has a total of 588 patients with corona, 22 of whom are in intensive care. That’s nearly half less than last year at this time. In more than two-thirds of these patients, Covid-19, whether or not accompanied by another condition, is the reason for admission.

And it was found that the rest of the patients were infected after entering the country for reasons not related to corona. Last winter, hospital congestion increased much faster, with more than 2,500 patients infected with the virus at Christmas. The number of corona patients in intensive care has remained more or less stable throughout the winter season and is much lower than it was in the previous winter months, as there are approximately twenty to fifty people with COVID-19 in intensive care units.