Two-week decline in Covid-19 ICU patients

After two straight weeks of decreasing Covid-19 patient numbers in intensive care, there were 934 patients being treated in ICU on Sunday. That is a decrease of 25 from a day earlier, and a decline of 34 percent since April 9, when 1,417 people were being treated for the coronavirus disease in intensive care, according to national patient coordination office LCPS.

"We are still seeing a slight decrease overall, with minor regional differences" said Ernst Kuipers, the chairperson of the Dutch network of acute care providers. Any hospitals which are overwhelmed can still coordinate patient transfers regionally if needed. "Where it leads to a high load for an entire region, the LCPS coordinates trips to another region and to Germany.'"

Intensive care units around the Netherlands were treating 395 people for illnesses other than Covid-19 on Sunday. This was partially made possible with the help of German hospitals who took in Dutch Covid-19 patients into their own ICUs. The German hospitals were still treating 33 Covid-19 patients from the Netherlands.

An estimated 670 of the 2,744 intensive care patients in treatment for Covid-19 have died since the end of February, nonprofit intensive care organization NICE said. Another 606 have been transferred to another hospital department and 541 have been discharged.

So far, 10,456 people with coronavirus have been treated in hospitals, of which over a quarter required admission to an intensive care unit.