13% less = 'slightly' decreased...?
13% less, when on earth do you call that "a slight decrease"?? On the stock market? Unemployment rates? CO2 emissions? Salary reduction? Fatalities? Drug abuse? A shrinking tumor? Weight loss? Drop in turnover? At VAT rates?
None of that, you have to be a virologist for that.
"The number of hospital admissions fell slightly, from 1,496 to 1,291. The number of ICU admissions also decreased slightly from 224 last week to 193 this week."
RIVM, 24 November 2020
These are substantial decreases; from 1500 to 1300! What kind of cookie bakers are they...!?
R0 rose and infections started to fall
Then they explain in detail that the R0 was above 1 two weeks ago and that is not good, because then the number of infections increases. 😮
"The R0 was 1.02 two weeks ago. With an R-value higher than 1, the number of infections increases. If the R-value is lower than 1, the number of infections decreases."
RIVM (I don't write it in capital letters anymore) November 24, 2020
Even the headline of the article states that the decline of the past few days/weeks is stagnating. But they also write that the R0 was above 1 two weeks ago. That is in the same headline.
Hoe konden de besmettingen bij R0>1 dusdanig dalen, dat je nu 13% daling als een stagnatie bestempelt? Kan iemand mij dat alsjeblieft uitleggen?
It is distraught. I am gradually entering a parallel universe!
When is something going to be right again from what sounds from that corner... They have really lost their way. And the journalists will undoubtedly type it over again. If you don't believe it's really such a mess, Read the article. I have shortened the quotes here slightly but respected the intention.
There is hope: the RIVM may not understand concepts such as 'absolute' and 'relative'
A desperate explanation could be that people have become less afraid. Someone with a runny nose no longer immediately goes to the test street. After all, with a bit of bad luck, you will end up in quarantine for two weeks, while you may not even be infected. If only people with more serious symptoms get tested, the percentage of positive PCR tests will increase, while the absolute number will decrease.
Set:
- 100 people get a runny nose. 75 are tested. Of these, 15 are positive, which is 20%.
- Two weeks later: 100 people get a runny nose. 52 (who also feel really weak) are tested. Of these, 13 are positive, which is 25%.
- So then you have fewer positive tests but a relative increase.
If you derive the R0 from the percentage of positives while using the absolute to look at increase/decrease, then you're there.
Would it really be such a numerical mess at RIVM?
Fortunately, it is too stupid for a conspiracy. That would be better put together, if I look at what kind of clever entrepreneurs there are in the supposed Advisory Board of the reset plans that are going around. RIVM, on the other hand, has previously indicated that it has nothing to do with numbers.
- They have no idea about droplet sizes and gravity, they think clouds are falling from the sky
- They do not distinguish exponential figures from linear ones, did not see the levelling off in October coming
- in this line fits perfectly with the juggling with absolute and relative results of unsuitable and unnecessary PCR tests.
With a club like that, I'm worried about tomorrow. You can already see the misery coming today.

[Edit: Maurice de Hond analyzes the data based on this update and comes to the same conclusion that I make based on the text analysis: it is not correct, the data cannot be reconciled with each other. He looks for the cause of the inaccuracies in the general administrative mess in the blog article Increase in the reproduction factor is fake news – Maurice de Hond ]
