COVID-19 reinfection cases in Luxembourg;
Credit: Kangkan Halder
On Thursday 6 January 2022, Luxembourg's Minister of Health, Paulette Lenert, confirmed that 611 (11.2%) cases out of the 5,641 COVID-19 positive cases identified in the week from Monday 27 December 2021 to Sunday 2 January 2022 (week 52) were 'reinfections', in a written reply to parliamentary question.
COVID-19 reinfection cases are where individuals tested positive in two separate PCR tests at least 90 days apart.
Minister Lenert also noted that the 611 reinfections are over a 3-fold jump compared to the week before (191 reinfection cases), coinciding with the dominance of the Omicron variant circulating in the population, strongly suggesting that Omicron variant can at least partially escape the immunity acquired by infections from other variants.
The national health laboratory (Laboratoire National de Santé - LNS) reported Omicron variant represented 35% of all SARS-CoV-2 lineages circulating in Luxembourg in the prior week, from 20 - 26 December 2021 (week 51), a sharp increase from only 8% the week before.
The LNS has not yet reported the circulating SARS-CoV-2 lineages for week 52.
The 191 reinfections reported for week 51 represented 7.1% of all positive cases (2,688).
In total, Minister Lenert mentioned a total of 2,377 reinfections were recorded in Luxembourg residents as of 2 January 2022, of which 802 (33.7%) cases were recorded in last two weeks (20 December 2021 to 2 January 2022).
As of 2 January 2022, a total of 95,993 residents have been declared cured following a SARS-CoV-2 infection, representing 15.3% of the population.
On Friday 7 January 2022, Minister Lenert acknowledged during a press conference that up to 80% of new cases detected are are due to the Omicron variant.
