Dutch Covid hospital total falls four percent to 12-day low

The number of patients in hospital care for Covid-19 fell by four percent to 656, patient coordination office LCPS said on Wednesday. That was the lowest active hospital total since July 30. The hospital total see-sawed last week, but has shown signs of trending downward after reaching a peak of 719 on August 3.

The current total included 210 patients in intensive care units, a net decrease of four after taking into account new admissions, discharges, and deaths. The ICU tally has been above 200 for six days, remaining at its highest level since June 20. Though the figure is relatively low considering over 800 Covid-19 patients were in Dutch ICUs as recently as early May, the intensive care system capacity is strained by vacations, and other issues impacting staff levels.

Regular care wards were treating the other 446 patients with the coronavirus disease. That reflected a net decrease of 26, which brought the number of Covid-19 patients in nursing care down to its lowest point in over two weeks.

Hospitals admitted 78 patients with the disease in total between Tuesday and Wednesday afternoon, including 20 who were sent directly to the ICU. On average, 84 Covid-19 patients have been admitted each of the past seven days, about five percent lower compared to a week ago. That includes 20 ICU admissions, an average which has risen slightly but steadily since mid-July.

Information systems errors between public health agency RIVM and municipal health service GGD led to an under reporting of coronavirus infections on Wednesday. A total of 2,155 infections were reported on Wednesday.

That brought the seven-day average down to 2,512 based on the raw data, about 14 percent lower compared to a week ago. That was the lowest since July 8 at the start of the Delta variant infection surge.

A mix of corrected and raw data put the average closer to 2,480.

The number of infections on Wednesday included 190 infections in Amsterdam, about seven percent below average. Some 135 people tested positive in Rotterdam, on par with the city’s average. Another 54 people were diagnosed with the infection in The Hague, about 41 percent below average.

A total of 1,892,104 positive coronavirus tests have been recorded by the RIVM since the start of the pandemic.