Second Covid wave could hit Netherlands in September, ICU association warns

"If the figures continue as they are now, there will be a second corona wave in September and we cannot handle that," Diederik Gommers, chairman of the Netherlands' intensive care association NVIC, said on talk show Op 1. "We expected that in January next year, but if this continues, it will come sooner."

"We don't know for sure, I don't want to cause a panic," Gommers said. "But if it continues like this, things will simply go wrong again." We'll have to hope things improve, he said. "We don't want to shut the whole country down again. If we have to, then we can't blame politics or young people, we all did this."

Ernst Kuipers of the National Acute Care Network also raised concerns about the rising coronavirus figures, speaking to the Telegraaf on Wenesday. Although the number of hospitalized Covid-19 patients has been limited over the past weeks, that will change in the coming days. 

Over the past two weeks, the number of coronavirus related hospital admissions rose from 80 to 150. "Although this seems fairly limited now, it is expected that this number will increase to 200 to 300 admissions between a week and ten days. And that is worrying, " Kuipers said to the newspaper. The number of Covid-19 patients in intensive care increased from 14 to 35. 

Hospitals can currently still handle the number of patients. "But when you see how fast this virus can circulate, then I hold my heart. Remember that we had the first corona patient in hospital on 27 February and at the end of March over a thousand," Kuipers said.

He stressed that the theory that the virus has become less severe because fo the low hospital numbers is absolutely not the case. "There is no indication that the virus is less intense," Kuipers said. "Vulnerable people are not becoming less seriously ill or ill les often. Only: now that we test more, we find more infected young people. They have always ended up in hospital less often, because they do not get so sick from corona."