The weekly retrospective gives you a broader overview of respiratory viruses in general: including COVID-19 and influenza.
COVID-19
During the week of 13 to 19 February 2023, the number of people testing positive for COVID-19 decreased to 837 cases, compared to 908 cases the previous week (-7.8%).
Among all those who tested positive, 50.2% were re-infected, compared to 50.0% the previous week.
One new death in connection with COVID-19 is to be deplored.
The average age of the deceased is 88 years.
In the hospitals, there were 11 new admissions of confirmed COVID-19 patients in normal care, compared to 13 the previous week. In intensive care, the number of occupied beds is 0. The average age of hospitalised patients is 65 years.
Vaccinations: update on the situation
For the week of 13 to 19 February 2023, a total of 108 doses were administered. 1 people received a 1st dose, 2 a 2nd dose, 23 people received one complementary dose to a full vaccination, 76 received a second complementary dose to a full vaccination and 6 received a third complementary dose to a full vaccination and 0 a fourth complementary dose to a full vaccination, raising the total number of vaccines administered as of 20 February 2023 to 1.293.137.
Please note that a technical error occurred in the transmission of the full vaccination schedule figures for the week of 6-12 February: these figures included non-residents.
The figure below for this week is now for residents only.
474,965 people have a complete vaccination pattern, which corresponds to a vaccination rate of 79% of the eligible population (i.e. the 5+ population).
The evolution of the variants
Variant sequencing data are published in the REVILUX report on the website of the National Health Laboratory (Laboratoire national de Santé, LNS) https://lns.lu/publications/
Currently the recombinant variant XBB.1.5 is the most frequent representing 34.5% in week 6 (29.8% in week 5). The Omicron BQ.1 variant represents 30.0% in week 6 (42.7% in week 5).
Wastewater monitoring in Luxembourg as part of SARS-CoV-2
The CORONASTEP report is published every 15 days.
According to the latest CORONASTEP report drawn up by the LIST (Luxembourg Institute of Science and Technology), the contamination level of the 13 wastewater treatment plants analysed during the 6th and 7th week of 2023 still shows a high prevalence of SARS-CoV-2 in wastewater at national level. In general, the current trend is towards a stabilisation of the observed SARS-COV-2 genome flows, with contamination levels comparable to those of the first weeks of 2023.
All CORONASTEP reports are available on the LIST website:
https://www.list.lu/en/covid-19/coronastep/
Influenza
For the week of 13 to 19 February 2023, the number of influenza cases reported by laboratories increased to 242 cases from 240 cases in the previous week, an increase of 0.8% compared to the previous week. Currently the influenza B virus is predominant.
The microbiology department of the LNS, in collaboration with the Health Directorate and a network of sentinel general practitioners and paediatricians throughout the country, carries out annual influenza sentinel surveillance.
Data on the influenza sentinel are published in the REVILUX report on the National Health Laboratory website LNS https://lns.lu/publications/
Press release by the Ministry of Health, the Laboratoire national de santé (LNS) and the Luxembourg Institute of Science and Technology (LIST)