COVID-19 cases - Weekly review: 24 - 30 May

During the week from 24 to 30 May, the number of people testing positive for COVID-19 decreased again from 495 to 354 (-28.5%), while the number of their identified close contacts also decreased from 1,757 cases the previous week to 1,298 (-40.6%). This is the 9th consecutive week of decline in new infections and the 5th week of decline in contact cases.

It should be noted that the number of PCR tests performed during the week of 24 to 30 May has decreased significantly from 72,118 to 44,490.

209 people reported a positive rapid antigen test.

As of 30 May, the number of active infections has decreased to 878 (compared to 1,283 on 23.05), while the number of people healed increased from 67,483 to 68,238. The average age of those diagnosed as COVID-19 positive remains stable at 32.6 years.

The number of new deaths remained low, with 4 deaths related to COVID-19. The average age of the deceased decreased to 71 years.

In the hospitals, there was a further decrease in admissions of confirmed COVID patients, with 19 hospitalisations in normal care, compared to 28 the previous week. In intensive care, the number of occupied beds also decreased from 19 to 13. The average age of hospitalised patients remains stable at 58 years.

From 5 June onwards, the COVID-19 data will no longer be published on weekends.

In view of the positive developments regarding the sanitary situation, the Ministry of Health will no longer release COVID-19 data during the weekends until further notice. However, the statistics for the weekend can be consulted in the graphs published on Mondays on the website www.covid19.lu, as well as on the Open Data website: https://data.public.lu. This decision was taken in order to allow the hospital and monitoring teams a rest period.

Positivity rate and incidence rate

For the reference period, the effective reproduction rate (R) remained stable at 0.81 (compared to 0.82 during the previous week), while the positivity rate on all tests performed (prescriptions, Large Scale Testing, contact tracing) slightly increased from 0.69% to 0.80% (weekly average). A similar trend can be observed for the positivity rate for tests carried out on prescription, i.e. for people with symptoms, which increased from 1.45% to 2.24%.

The incidence rate clearly continues its downward trend for all age groups, with 56 cases per 100,000 residents over 7 days, compared to 78 cases per 100,000 residents for the week of 17 May. The most significant decrease is recorded in the age group 0-14 years (-41%), followed by the 75+ years (-40%). The 75+ age group continues to have the lowest incidence rate with 7 cases per 100,000 residents, followed by the age group 60-74 years, with 24 cases per 100,000 residents. The 15-29 age group has the highest incidence rate with 85 cases per 100,000 inhabitants.

Quarantine and isolation

For the week from 24 to 30 May, 1,169 people were in isolation (-29.7%) and 1,128 in quarantine (-40.6% compared to the previous week).

Contaminations

For the 354 new cases, the family circle remains by far the most frequent source of transmission of COVID-19 infections with 46.2%, followed by the school (5.1%), leisure activities (3.7%), the work place (2.7%) and travel abroad (2.3%). The rate of contamination for which the source is not clearly attributable decreased slightly to 38.8%.

Vaccinations: update on the situation

For the week of 24 to 30 May, a total of 25,682 doses were administered. This decrease is explained by the decrease in delivered doses compared to expected doses. 7,001 people received a 1st dose and 18,681 received a 2nd dose, bringing the total number of vaccines administered until 1 June to 356,322 (1st and 2nd dose). 135,558 people have a complete vaccination pattern.

The evolution of the variants

For the week of 17 to 23 May, the population sequencing coverage was 66.3%, well above the optimal rate of 10% recommended by ECDC in order to have an optimal representative sampling.

Regarding the 495 samples carried out for calendar week 20/2021, the following distribution of variants can be observed:

• the UK variant B.1.1.7 represents 76.5% of cases, compared to 78.9% for week 19
• the Indian variant B.1.617.2 represents 7.5% of cases, compared to 3.8% for week 19
• the South African SA variant (B.1.351) represents 2.5% of cases, compared to 5.9% for week 19
• the Brazilian variant (P.1) represents 2.2% of cases, compared to 3.9% for week 19

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

Due to the public holiday in the week of 24-30 May, the LIST (Luxembourg Institute of Science and Technology) only carried out wastewater sampling on Friday 28 May. The related results will be published together with those of week 22 in the next report.

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)