Covid ICU total at 12-week high; Over 86K vaccinated on Thursday

For the first time since January 5, hospitals in the Netherlands were treating over 700 intensive care patients with Covid-19 on Friday. A day earlier healthcare workers managed to vaccinate nearly 86,500 people, a national record. Although nearly 7,300 people tested positive for the SARS-CoV-2 infection, the seven-day average for new infections actually fell, breaking a 24-day streak of increases.

There were 2,330 people in Dutch hospitals with Covid-19, a slight increase compared to Thursday. That included 705 people in intensive care, a net increase of 17 patients, at a time when the ICU workers have grown increasingly exhausted making it harder to increase capacity in the acute care wards. The other 1,625 patients were being treated in regular care, a net decrease of 14.

The moving average for new daily Covid-19 hospital admissions rose to 300 on Friday, also for the first time in three months. The figure went up by half just in the past month. The latest rise was due to 324 new patients admitted between the afternoons of Thursday and Friday, including 48 in intensive care.

Vaccinations beginning to pick up steam

There were signs of improvement on the country's vaccination front, with the Netherlands setting a new daily record for Covid-19 jabs en route to a new record for the calendar week. An estimated 86,478 injections were given on Thursday, pushing the total for the calendar week up to 285,332. That already eclipsed the entire number of doses given last week by about five thousand.

With the holiday weekend, the Ministry of Health estimated that over 433 thousand vaccinations would be given this week, which was revised down mid-week from 514 thousand. A total number of 2,664,138 shots have been administered since the vaccination campaign began on January 6.

Coronavirus infections show signs of leveling off

Public health agency RIVM also said that a dubious 24-day streak was snapped when the average number of daily coronavirus infections fell to 7,425. It was the first time the average fell since March 8. The RIVM said that another 7,296 people tested positive for the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus, including 355 in Rotterdam. That city has seen its moving average shoot up to 359, up a quarter just this week.

Just this week, 35,595 people tested positive for the infection. That was two percent higher than last week. The rate of increase showed signs of stabilizing, now that the infection average has jumped by two-thirds just in the past month.

So far this week, 114 deaths from Covid-19 were reported to the RIVM. That was 21 percent lower than last week. It pushed the country's known total since beginning of the crisis to 16,575.

To date, people in the Netherlands have tested positive for the infection 1,287,696 times.