The GGD facility at Twente University for coronavirus testing and Covid-19 vaccinations. 2 January 2021 - Credit: Peter / Feij.nl - License: CC-BY-NC

Friday, January 8, 2021 - 15:58

1 in 5 Dutch hospital patients has Covid-19; Coronavirus tally near 8,200

Nearly one out of every five people being treated in a Dutch hospital on Friday was a Covid-19 patient, according to patient coordination office LCPS. Hospitals in the country were at 85 percent of capacity, including the hospital wards and intensive care units.

The LCPS was cautiously optimistic that the country has seen a peak in hospitalizations related to the coronavirus disease, and that declining figures were imminent. “We are at a plateau and even seem to be slightly over the top. The number of COVID patients continues to slowly decline in the wards and is fluctuating around 700 patients in the ICU.”

Of the 13,774 patients in a hospital, 2,636 of them have the coronavirus disease. That figure fell by a net total of four percent since Tuesday afternoon. The number of Covid-19 patients was roughly the same compared to New Year’s Day, exactly one week ago.

Regular care hospital departments were treating 1,936 coronavirus patients, down 116 from Thursday. The combined tally included 700 patients in intensive care, a net decrease of four after accounting for admissions, discharges and deaths. The ICU total has been above of below 700 by five percent for the last ten days, peaking at 723 on January 5.

Coronavirus hospital admissions for this calendar week are down about 15 percent from last week, including 254 more patients admitted between Thursday and Friday afternoon. During that time, 37 patients were moved into an ICU, with the acute care department seeing a 27 percent drop in Covid-19 admissions this week.

Still, another 8,169 people tested positive for the SARS-CoV-2 infection, according to daily figures from public health agency RIVM. It was the second day in a row where the daily total was above the moving average, which shifted slightly to 7,743.

So far this week, 38,131 have been diagnosed with the infection, down ten percent from last week. It was still not clear if New Year’s Eve gathering have had a significant impact on the data. The RIVM will release on Tuesday how many people have been tested this week for the virus, and approximately what percentage of them tested positive.

To date, 858,914 people have tested positive for the coronavirus infection in the Netherlands. The RIVM said it knows of 12,171 people who have died from Covid-19, including 89 more cases added to statistics on Friday.