COVID-19 cases - Weekly review: 23 - 29 August

For the week of 23 to 29 August, the number of people testing positive for COVID-19 has increased from 440 to 542 cases (+23%), as well as the number of their identified close contacts, which increased to 1,514, compared to 887 cases the week before (+71%).

Among the 542 new infections, 428 people were not vaccinated (78.9%) and 114 people had a complete vaccination pattern (21.1%).

Among hospital admissions, 84.2% of normal care patients and 100% of intensive care patients were not vaccinated.

The number of PCR tests performed during the week of 23 to 29 August has decreased from 28,107 to 27,349.

4 people reported a positive rapid antigen test (RAT) for the reporting week, compared to 3 the previous week, bringing the number of positive results performed by a health-care worker to a total of 284. Since the introduction of self-tests, 804 positive results have been reported (with 0 cases for the week of 23 to 29 August). It should be noted that positive RATs are not included in the calculation of the positivity rate.

As of 29 August, the number of active infections has increased to 915 (from 662 on 22 August), while the number of people healed increased from 73,638 to 73,927. The average age of those diagnosed as positive for COVID-19 has slightly increased from 31.2 to 31.4 years.

For the week of 23 to 29 August, no new deaths related to COVID-19 have been reported.

In the hospitals, there were 21 new admissions of confirmed COVID-19 patients in normal care, compared to 18 the previous week. The number of occupied beds in the intensive care unit increased from 4 to 6. The average age of inpatients dropped from 51 to 47 years.

Positivity rate and incidence rate

For the reference period, the effective reproduction rate (R) decreased to 1.10 (1.16 the week before), as well as the positivity rate on all tests performed (prescription, Large Scale Testing, contact tracing) with 1.98% compared to 1.57% the previous week. The positivity rate for tests carried out on prescription, i.e. for people with symptoms, increased from 4.91% to 6.18%.

The 7-day incidence rate increased to 85 per 100,000 inhabitants, compared to 69 per 100,000 inhabitants the previous week.

The incidence rate has increased in all age groups. The lowest incidence rate is recorded in the age groups 75+ and 60-74 years.

Quarantine and isolation

During the week of 23 to 29 August, 999 people were in isolation (+13%) and 972 in quarantine (+47%).

Contaminations

For the 542 new cases, travel abroad remained the most frequent source of transmission of COVID-19 infections with 29.9%, followed by the family circle (27.0%) and leisure activities (4.5%). The rate of contamination for which the source is not clearly attributable increased to 34.7%.

Vaccinations: update on the situation

For the week of 23 to 29 August, a total of 6,978 doses were administered. 2,952 people received a 1st dose, 3,988 a 2nd dose and 38 a 3rd dose, bringing the total number of vaccines administered as of 1 September to 763,335. 391,721 people have a complete vaccination pattern.

The evolution of the variants

Variant sequencing data are published every Friday on the website of the National Health Laboratory (Laboratoire national de Santé, LNS) https://lns.lu/en/departement/department-of-microbiology/revilux/..

Wastewater monitoring in Luxembourg as part of SARS-CoV-2 

The contamination level of the 13 analysed waste water treatment plants sampled by the LIST (Luxembourg Institute of Science and Technology) during the week of 23 to 29 August, still shows a high prevalence of SARS-CoV-2 flux values. However, the level of contamination seems to have stabilised with similar signals for the last three samplings.

All CORONASTEP reports are available on the LIST website: https://www.list.lu/en/covid-19/coronastep/.

Press release by the Ministry of Health, the Laboratoire national de santé (LNS) and the Luxembourg Institute of Science and Technology (LIST)

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