During the week from 14 to 20 June and for the 12th week in a row, the number of people testing positive for COVID-19 continued to decrease significantly from 189 to 90 (-52.3%), while the number of their identified close contacts also decreased from 742 cases the previous week to 396 (-46.6%).
The number of PCR tests performed during the week of 14 to 20 June has increased from 45,745 to 46,380.
230 people reported a positive rapid antigen test.
As of 20 June, the number of active infections had decreased to 258 (compared to 498 on 13 June), while the number of people healed increased from 69,129 to 69,459. The average age of those diagnosed as COVID-19 positive decreased to 27.7 years, compared to 33 years the previous week.
The week of 14 to 20 June was the second week in which no new deaths related to COVID-19 were recorded. This has not been the case since the week of 21 to 27 September 2020.
The decrease continues in the hospitals. There were no new admissions of confirmed COVID-19 patients in normal care. In intensive care, the number of occupied beds also remained stable at 2. However, the average age of hospitalised patients increased from 54 to 64 years.
As a result of this clear improvement of the situation in hospitals, Luxembourg has again reached phase 0 of the scale-up plan, which means that all new admissions can be handled in one hospital.
Positivity rate and incidence rate
For the reference period, the effective reproduction rate (R) decreased from 0.70 to 0.58, as well as the positivity rate on all tests performed (prescriptions, Large Scale Testing, contact tracing), with 0.19% compared to 0.41% the previous week. A similar trend can be observed for the positivity rate for tests carried out on prescription, i.e. for people with symptoms, which decreased from 1.19% to 0.58%.
The incidence rate clearly continues its downward trend for all age groups, with 14 cases per 100,000 residents over 7 days, compared to 30 cases per 100,000 residents for the week of 7 June.
The lowest incidence rate is recorded in the 60-74 and 75+ age groups, with 5 cases per 100,000 inhabitants. The 0-14 age group has now the highest incidence rate with 25 cases per 100,000 inhabitants, followed by the 15-29 age group, with 20 cases per 100,000 inhabitants.
Quarantine and isolation
For the week from 14 to 20 June, 467 people were in isolation (-32%) and 515 in quarantine (-22% compared to the previous week).
Contaminations
For the 90 new cases, the family circle remains by far the most frequent source of transmission of COVID-19 infections with 41.3%, followed by school (12.9%) and travel abroad (10.9%). The rate of contamination for which the source is not clearly attributable decreased to 32.6%.
Vaccinations: update on the situation
For the week of 14 to 20 June, a total of 43,866 doses were administered. 25,140 people received a 1st dose and 18,726 received a 2nd dose, bringing the total number of vaccines administered until 23 June to 505,986 (1st and 2nd dose). 217,234 people have a complete vaccination pattern.
The evolution of the variants
For the week of 7 to 13 June, population sequencing coverage was 36%.
Regarding the 189 samples carried out for calendar week 23/2021, the following distribution of variants can be observed:
- the Alpha variant (UK) B.1.1.7 represents 50.5% of cases, compared to 47.4% for week 22
- the Delta variant (Indian) B.1.617.2 represents 35.0% of cases, compared to 30.4% for week 22
- the Gamma variant (Brazilian) P.1 represents 3.9% of cases (4 new cases were detected, compared to no cases the previous week)
- the Beta variant (South African) B.1.351 represents 1.0% of cases (1 new case was detected)
Since the appearance of the Delta variant in Luxembourg, an exponential development from week to week has been observed. However, this trend was interrupted in the week of 7 to 13 June, with a 40% reduction (56 to 34) in Delta cases. The more significant reduction in the number of cases in the other variants is reflected in the increase of the Delta proportion (31% to 35%).
It should also be noted that the sequencing rate in Luxembourg is well above the rate recommended by the ECDC (10%) and, above all, that the total number of Delta cases - in absolute terms - is low.
More detailed information on the spread of variants in Luxembourg is published 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 14 to 20 June, indicates a constant downward trend over the past weeks. A similar trend is observed at the level of individual wastewater treatment plants, with some of them showing contamination levels close to or below the detection limits. This result will have to be confirmed by the analyses performed in the coming weeks.
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)