Covid-19 patients in ICU top 40 for first time in 8 weeks

For the first time since June 25, more than 40 people with Covid-19 were being treated simultaneously in intensive care. Dutch hospitals were treating a total of 171 patients with the coronavirus disease on Tuesday, an increase of six. Over two-thirds of them were located in the Randstad region covering Amsterdam, Rotterdam, The Hague and Utrecht.

About 51,762 people in the Netherlands were contagious with the SARS-CoV-2 novel coronavirus on Tuesday, according to data from public health agency RIVM. That was a 60 percent increase compared to a week earlier. The data also showed that a total of 489 more people tested positive for the virus.

"The number of admitted COVID patients continues to increase gradually. More than 70% of them are located in the Randstad, in line with the concentrations of new infections," said Ernst Kuipers, the head of the acute care providers network in the Netherlands.

Some 42 of those patients were in intensive care, three more than on Monday. The other 129 patients were being treated outside of intensive care, also an increase of three, according to patient coordination office LCPS.

Over three thousand people in the Netherlands have required intensive care treatment for Covid-19 since the end of February, according to nonprofit organization NICE. While 1,940 of those patients were eventually discharged from the hospital, 876 died in intensive care.