Dutch Covid patient total increases by widest margin in 6 weeks

Dutch hospitals were treating 47 more patients for Covid-19 on Monday afternoon compared to a day earlier, the biggest increase in a day since July 20, according to the LCPS. There were 689 patients with the disease in treatment, a seven percent increase. That was also the highest rate of increase in 34 days.

There were 469 people being treated for the disease in regular care wards, a net increase of 51 after accounting for new admissions, discharges and deaths. The other 220 patients were in intensive care units, a net decrease of four. Combined, the patient total was about two percent higher compared to a week ago. A similar increase would put the tally back over 700.

Hospitalizations for the disease during the past seven days are up 5 percent over the previous period. Intensive care admissions alone were up 24 percent. Hospitals admitted 64 patients with Covid-19 between Sunday and Monday afternoon, including 13 people sent directly to an ICU. The medical centers admitted 79 patients on average each of the past seven days, including 17 sent to ICU.

Raw data from public health agency RIVM showed that 2,213 more people tested positive for the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus. That brought the seven-day moving average down to 2,560, the second straight decline. The average was still three percent higher than a week earlier. A combination of raw and corrected data put the average at 2,532.

The rise and fall of the average this week has largely coincided with the number of people scheduling their own coronavirus test. About 13.7 percent of them tested positive for the viral infection on average, preliminary data has shown. That was roughly the same as a week earlier. The R-number, a measure of the spread of the virus, remained at 1.02, roughly the same as it was at the start of last week. That means that 100 people contagious with the virus will likely infect 102 others, who will in turn pass it on to 104 more people.

The three cities reporting the most new infections on Monday were Amsterdam (183), Rotterdam (138) and The Hague (107). The result in Amsterdam was 12 percent below the capital’s moving average, while in Rotterdam the figure was 7 percent above that city’s mean. The Hague posted a total bout 8 percent below average.

To date, people have tested positive for the viral infection 1,938,743 times.