Covid ICU patient total hits 11-month high; Vaccinations to rise 42% this week

After three straight days where over 50 patients with Covid-19 were admitted into intensive care, the number of acute care patients with the disease soared to its highest level since April 30. There were 746 Covid-19 patients in intensive care on Monday afternoon, and another 1,628 were being treated in a regular care ward at a Dutch hospital.

The combined total of 2,374 patients was the highest since January 20, and reflected a two percent increase over figures reported on Sunday afternoon. Still, the patient total stood just one percent higher than a week ago, a sign that the third wave of infections and hospitalizations may level off earlier than predicted as members of the Outbreak Management Team told newspaper AD.

Still, the ICUs were treating 16 more Covid-19 patients compared to Sunday, and regular care departments saw their patient total rise by 41. Out of all people being treated as admitted patients at a Dutch hospital on Monday, 18 percent of them had the coronavirus disease.

Covid-19 vaccine update

Healthcare workers in the country managed to vaccinate 36,417 people against Covid-19 on Easter Sunday. That meant that the estimated number of jabs given over the past calendar week rose to 440,906. If accurate, that beat the revised Health Ministry estimate by nearly two percent, though it was 14 percent below the initial estimate for the week.

The ministry said it anticipated 624,361 shots would be administered this week, a possible 42 percent increase. Roughly 71 percent of the 2,819,712 vaccine doses given out to date were a person’s first dose of a two-dose vaccine.

That means that about 720 thousand of the 14.4 million adults living in the Netherlands have been fully vaccinated against the coronavirus disease.

Coronavirus infection average dips below 7,000

Public health agency RIVM also said on Monday that 5,365 more people tested positive for the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus infection. That brought the seven-day moving average down below seven thousand for the first time since March 24. The average stood at 6,962, though the impact of Easter weekend on test figures would likely be seen over the next few days.

The percentage of people testing positive for the infection appeared to be on the rise over the past two weeks. It has gone up from about eight percent at the beginning of March to around nine percent this past weekend. More clarity about this data will be provided by the RIVM on Tuesday.

The agency also said that eight more people are known to have died from Covid-19, though weekend and holiday reporting of fatalities is often delayed. The seven-day average dropped to 23 with the new data.

A total of 16,629 confirmed deaths in the Netherlands were linked to Covid-19 since February of last year. People have tested positive for the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus 1,307,466 times.