Another drop in ICU patients with Covid-19; 1,235 still receiving care

There were 23 fewer Covid-19 patients from the Netherlands being treated in intensive care units on Friday, patient coordination office LCPS said. With 1,235 patients being treated in ICUs, it was the sixth-straight day with a decline.

The peak number of ICU patients being treated for the coronavirus disease was 1,424 on April 7. On Friday that figure was over 13 percent lower.

"The decline is now proceeding at a stable pace," said Ernst Kuipers, who chairs the network of acute care providers. Dutch hospitals are treating 1,183 of the patients, with the other 52 receiving care in Germany.

At least 339 out of the 2,561 Covid-19 patients who received care in intensive care since the end of February have been discharged from the hospital, with another 502 having been transferred to another department. Another 536 have died, according to figures from intensive care nonprofit organization NICE.

Kuipers and LCPS operations manager Bas Leerink met on Friday with King Willem-Alexander at the LCPS, located within the Erasmus Medical Center in Rotterdam. They discussed pressing issues, like restarting medical care unrelated to Covid-19 which was largely put on hold because of the coronavirus pandemic.

The Dutch intensive care association NVIC wrote a guideline for hospitals to use when relatives want to visit coronavirus patients dying in the hospital, NOS reports. Until now, it was left up to hospitals to decide whether visitation would be possible. "In the beginning, the hospitals had to scale up quickly and keep the hygiene and precautions intact," NVIC chairman Diederik Gommers said to NOS. But now that the situation has settled somewhat, the NVIC considered it time to write a guideline to help hospitals better organize ICU visits.

For example, the guideline states that a dying patient can be taken to a separate room where their family can visit them. But that means that more protective gear will be needed, Gommers said. "We are still short of materials. If that is better organized, hopefully between now and a two weeks, we can expand this visit arrangement a bit."