Estimated number of patients who contact the general practitioner for the first time with COVID-19-like symptoms

A representative sample of around 380 GP practices across the Netherlands provide data once a week to the Nivel (Netherlands Institute for Health Services Research) Primary Care Database. They record reported and observed symptoms and diagnoses of the consulting patients. Using this data, Nivel calculated the weekly (Monday through Sunday) number of patients with symptoms that could indicate COVID-19, based on the diagnostic codes ‘acute upper respiratory system infection’, ‘other respiratory infection(s)’, ‘influenza’, ‘pneumonia’, ‘other viral disease(s)’, ‘other infectious disease’, ‘fever’, ‘shortness of breath’, and ‘coughing’, in combination with textual information provided that could indicate COVID-19.
The case definition for COVID-19-like symptoms was: incident cases consulting their GP with symptoms related to COVID-19, who have not (yet) tested positive for SARS-CoV-2 virus.
The numbers were updated on a weekly basis and published on the Corona Dashboard of the Ministry of Health, Welfare and Sport.

Since June 2020, all persons in the Netherlands could be tested for SARS-CoV-2 virus free of charge. Persons with COVID-19-like symptoms, who consulted their GP, will therefore have been tested before in most cases. Therefore, the series has stopped in 2021, week 34.