The weekly retrospective gives you a broader overview of respiratory viruses in general: including COVID-19 and influenza.
COVID-19
During the week of 20 to 26 February 2023, the number of people testing positive for COVID-19 increased to 1409 cases, compared to 837 cases the previous week (+68.3%).
Among all those who tested positive, 53.4% were re-infected, compared to 50.2% the previous week.
5 new death in connection with COVID-19 is to be deplored.
The average age of the deceased is 82 years.
During this week there was an average of 10 confirmed COVID-19 positive patients hospitalised per day in normal care, compared to 11 the previous week. In intensive care, the number of occupied beds is 0.
The average age of hospitalised patients is 63 years.
Vaccinations: update on the situation
For the week of 20 to 26 February 2023, a total of 133 doses were administered.
3 people received a 1st dose, 6 a 2nd dose, 20 people received one complementary dose to a full vaccination, 90 received a second complementary dose to a full vaccination and 14 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 28 February 2023 to 1,293,165.
474.971 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 35.5% in week 7 (34.5% in week 6). The Omicron BQ.1 variant represents 26.4% in week 7 (30.5% in week 6).
Wastewater monitoring in Luxembourg as part of SARS-CoV-2
The CORONASTEP report is published every 15 days.
The next report is planned for Tuesday 7 March 2023 and will contain data for weeks 8 and 9.
All CORONASTEP reports are available on the LIST website:
https://www.list.lu/en/covid-19/coronastep/.
Influenza
For the week of 20 to 26 February 2023, the number of influenza cases reported by laboratories increased to 252 cases from 247 cases in the previous week, an increase of 2.0% 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