Covid-19 hospital total falls to lowest point since March 26

There were 2,231 people being treated in Dutch hospitals for Covid-19 on Thursday, the lowest patient total in 48 days. Some 240 people were hospitalized with Covid-19 between the afternoons of Wednesday and Thursday, which brought the seven-day average down to 254.

Should fewer than 256 Covid-19 patients be admitted through Friday afternoon, the average will fall below 250, roughly the marker set by the Outbreak Management Team to give the Cabinet the green light for the next phase of lockdown easing.

The hospitalized total of 2,231 reflected a single day decrease of 114 patients, about five percent, after accounting for admissions, deaths and discharges, data from the LCPS showed. It was 13 percent lower compared to a week ago. If that trend holds, the total will dip below 2,000 within a week.

The day's total included 733 people in intensive care, a net decrease of five. That figure was the lowest it has been since April 2. That was the first day during the third wave of Covid-19 hospitalizations that the ICU total topped 700.

Another 1,498 patients were being treated for the disease in regular care wards. The net decrease of 109 was the second consecutive triple-digit fall, bringing the total to its lowest point since March 21.

Public health agency RIVM said on Thursday that people tested positive for the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus another 6,088 times. That brought the moving average down to 6,544. The average remained nine percent lower compared to a week ago.

Rotterdam (337), The Hague (231) and Amsterdam (166) were the cities with the most new infections. While Rotterdam's moving average remained high at 322, Amsterdam's fell below three hundred on the news, dropping to 293. The Hague has seen an average of 221 people test positive for the infection on each of the past seven days.

To date, people have tested positive for the infection a total of 1,583,767 times. The RIVM knows of 17,413 deaths from Covid-19, but there is no mandate to report the deaths to the RIVM. It is compulsory to file death reports with the CBS, with their data showing that at least ten thousand more people died from the disease than the RIVM's data shows.