Vulnerable groups and people over 70

Where do the numbers come from?

The figures on nursing home care are provided by the National Institute for Public Health and the Environment (RIVM). RIVM supplies the figures as an open data file.

• Download the csv-file with RIVM’s open data set on nursing home care
• Read RIVM’s description of the data set on nursing home care

Please note: Data will no longer be updated

On July 1, 2023, the reporting obligation for corona expired. Nursing homes also no longer have to report whether residents have been infected with COVID-19. As a result, the data on nursing homes will no longer be updated on the dashboard after July 11, 2023.

How are the numbers calculated?

Residents testing positive
RIVM counts a person as a nursing home resident if, according to the OSIRIS central database, they are resident in a nursing home or a similar residential care centre for the elderly. When someone tests positive for coronavirus, the municipal health service (GGD) asks if that person is resident in a nursing home or residential care home for the elderly. If this information is unavailable, RIVM determines whether the person is a nursing home resident using the old definition (see below under ‘Changes in the figures’).

Nursing and care homes with positive tests
RIVM has determined the total number of nursing home locations per region using the list provided by Zorgkaart Nederland. RIVM counts nursing homes with the same postcode as one nursing home location. The same method is used to determine the number of locations with a positive test. It is necessary to know the total number of nursing home locations per region in order to calculate the percentage of nursing home locations that are infected. To calculate the total number of nursing home locations nationwide, we add up the totals of all regions.

Average over 7 days
The graph showing the number of confirmed cases among nursing home residents and the graph showing the number of residents who have died shows the average over 7 days.

Adjustments

Change in the delivery of data
As of 1 January 2023, if a test result is positive, it will no longer be recorded whether a person lives at home or lives in a nursing home.

This information was passed on by the GGDs and was an important source of information at an earlier stage of the COVID-19 pandemic. In the meantime, other monitoring instruments and information sources (such as Infectieradar, sewage and germ surveillance and hospital registrations) have become important or have been further developed.

From 10 January 2023, people who have tested positive will be reported as residents of a nursing home, provided that the postal code of this person corresponds to the location of a nursing home.

The Nursing home locations with positive tests section will continue to be updated. This information will be shown on a this new page about Vulnerable groups and people over 70.

If the epidemiological situation changes and additional data sources are required, the GGDs can be asked to provide additional information.

Changes in the figures since November 2021
The definition RIVM used up to the end of September 2020 to determine if someone who had tested positive was a nursing home resident (see below under ‘Old definition’) resulted in an incomplete number of infected nursing home locations. From 1 July 2020, the GGDs register whether a newly-infected person is a nursing home resident. RIVM has recalculated the figures on the dashboard from 1 July 2020 onwards using this data, which now gives a much better picture of the actual number of infected nursing homes and nursing home residents. For reports of confirmed cases amongst residents without a stated first day of illness, the RIVM determines a calculated first day of illness. This calculation method has been adjusted from 16 July 2021. The figures for the number of infected locations have been retroactively adjusted on the dashboard.

As of November 2021, due to the scaled-down contact tracing, it is not standard checked if people live in an institution. This leads to an incomplete number of positively tested nursing home residents and infected nursing home locations.

Old definition
According to the old definition, a person was considered a nursing home resident if they met one of the following conditions:

• OSIRIS could link the person to a registered nursing home or residential care home for the elderly on the basis of a postcode;
• OSIRIS could link the person to a place where infection may have occurred to a setting labelled ‘nursing home’ or similar on the basis of a postcode;
• OSIRIS could link the person to a nursing home or residential care home for the elderly on the basis of another term in the system.

In addition, the person:

• had to be over 70 years old