Some 7,000 coronavirus patients discharged from hospital

Almost 7 thousand Covid-19 patients who where hospitalized in the Netherlands have recovered enough to be sent home. That is almost two thirds of all 12 thousand coronavirus patients who were admitted to hospital, according to figures released by foundation NICE.

Until now, the RIVM only released figures of Covid-19 diagnoses, hospitalizations, and deaths. These are the first figures about patients recovering. The recovered patients are 63.5 years old on average and spent an average of almost seven days in hospital. 

Coronavirus patients who needed to be hospitalized, but did not need intensive care, recovered faster and were more likely to survive than those who did need to go to the ICU. 70 percent of Covid-19 patients in regular hospital wards were eventually discharged, while only 20 percent of ICU patients have been sent home so far. 26 percent of ICU patients have died, and 16 percent in the regular ward. 

Over half of the discharged patients were sent home from hospital within five days. The average length of stay on the regular nursing ward was almost seven days. Only 160 recovered patients were in hospital for over 20 days. In the ICU, only a quarter of recovered patients were able to go home after 5 days. 11 percent spent more than three weeks in intensive care. About half of the patients admitted to the ICU are still in hospital, either still in intensive care or in a nursing ward.