Hospitals treating 15% fewer Covid-19 patients than last Tuesday

Hospitals in the Netherlands were treating 1,739 patients with Covid-19 on Tuesday afternoon. That reflected a reduction of over 15 percent in a week. It was the sharpest weekly decrease reported by patient coordination service LCPS since mid-January. A similar drop would bring the total down to 1,475.

The current hospital tally included 103 patients in intensive care unit, a net decrease of one since Monday afternoon when taking admissions, discharges, and deaths into account. The ICU figure remained at its lowest point since July 20. The other 1,636 patients were in regular care wards, a net decrease of 52 in a day.

Dutch hospitals admitted 159 new Covid-19 patients in the past 24 hours, including 13 sent directly to intensive care. On average, hospitals admitted 185 patients each of the past seven days, the lowest total in a month.

The RIVM said that 14,081 people tested positive for the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus between Monday and Tuesday morning. That brought the seven-day moving average down for the 25th consecutive time. The figure fell to 18,464 based solely on raw data, a week-on-week decrease of 42 percent.

The three cities with the most new infections were Amsterdam (616), Rotterdam (460), and The Hague (408). Each was nearly one-fourth below their respective moving average. The seven-day average in the six biggest cities in the Netherlands has shown a weekly drop of between 35 and 47 percent.

Still, a high rate of people have been testing positive for the coronavirus. During the last calendar week, 61.3 percent of those tested by the GGD learned they were infected with the coronavirus. That figure has been falling from a peak of 70 percent. Last week, roughly 31,500 people were tested at a GGD facility daily, a decrease of about a third.