Covid hospital patient total up 10% in a week to 2,558; Infection avg. falls again

Dutch hospitals were treating 2,558 people with Covid-19 on Wednesday afternoon, up two percent in a day. The total has gone up by ten percent in a week. Should that trend continue there will be more than 2,800 patients with the disease in care next week.

Patient coordination office LCPS said that 776 people with the coronavirus disease were being treated in intensive care units, a net increase of 26. The other 1,782 were in regular care, up 34 since Tuesday afternoon.

During that 24-hour period, hospitals admitted 342 more patients with Covid-19, the most in over a week. The LCPS said 57 of them were brought to the ICU.

Confirmed coronavirus infections also shot up by 15 percent in a single day, public health agency RIVM said. Another 6,409 people tested positive for the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus infection. While a three-day high, the total was actually 17 percent lower than last week

That pulled the seven-day moving average down for the sixth straight day to 6,735. The RIVM said on Tuesday that the low figures reported recently may have been due to the Easter holiday. The agency said it could take at least the remainder of this week to determine the holiday's impact.

Coronavirus infections this calendar week are down 15 percent compared to last week. The seven-day average of diagnosed Covid-19 deaths remained at 20, down from 24 last week.

To date, the RIVM said it knew of 16,672 deaths from Covid-19, though the country's statistical bureau said it was likely far higher. It estimated that over 20 thousand died from the disease last year alone.

People in the Netherlands have tested positive for the SARS-CoV-2 infection 1,319,353 times.