Monday's coronavirus total up 51% compared to last week

Another 797 people tested positive for the SARS-CoV-2 novel coronavirus, public health institute RIVM said on Monday. It represented a 51 percent increase over last Monday's total of 527.

The RIVM said that from Friday through Sunday, 19 more patients were hospitalized because of Covid-19, and seven more patients were moved into intensive care. So far, 3,051 people in the Netherlands have required intensive care treatment for the coronavirus disease, according to figures from nonprofit organization NICE.

There were 140 people being treated in Dutch hospitals for the illness on Monday, an increase of two since Sunday. While there was a decrease of two admitted patients in intensive care, taking the ICU total to 31, there was an increase of four outside of the ICU, for an additional 109 patients.

"​The number of admitted COVID patients is still relatively low, despite the increasing number of new infections in the past week," said Ernst Kuipers, the head of the Dutch acute care providers network. "The overall ICU occupancy is back to the lowest level of the past month," he said.

Since the end of February, 888 patients with Covid-19 have died in ICUs, and 2,009 intensive care patients were eventually discharged from the hospital.