Fig. 1

The weekly number of breast and colorectal cancer diagnoses in the Netherlands between 6 January 2020 and 4 October 2020. The difference between the observed (pink line) and expected number of cancer diagnoses (blue line) is considered statistically significant when the observed number of cancer diagnoses does not fall within the range of the 95% confidence intervals of the expected number of cancer diagnoses (blue shaded area). a, b The observed and expected number of breast cancer diagnoses among women age < 50 or > 74 years (i.e. those not invited for biennial mammography screening) and women aged 50–74 years (i.e. those invited for biennial mammography screening), respectively. c, d The observed and expected number of colorectal cancer diagnoses among individuals age < 55 or > 75 years (i.e. those not invited for biennial faecal immunochemical testing) and individuals aged 55–75 years (i.e. those invited for biennial faecal immunochemical testing), respectively. The current statistics do not yet include cases diagnosed in one of the 74 hospitals in the Netherlands. Of note, the ‘sawtooth effect’ for both the expected and observed number of cancer diagnoses between early–mid-April 2020 and early June 2020 can be explained, in part, by four official national holidays spanning that period. On these holidays, a broad range of non-essential services, such as routine diagnostic practices, are closed