Over 1,000 Covid patients in hospitals for the first time in 11 weeks; Infections up 10%
Hospitals in the Netherlands were treating over a thousand people with Covid-19 for the first time since April 22.
A total of 1,008 people were in hospital care on Tuesday, an increase of 38 since Monday, the LCPS reported. That total was also 16 percent higher compared to a week earlier, and was more than double the total reported on June 17. The current patient total included 961 people in regular care wards, a 17 percent rise, and 47 in intensive care. The ICUs were treating just two more Covid-19 patients compared to last Tuesday.
Between Monday and Tuesday afternoon, hospitals admitted 184 new patients with the disease, the most in a single day since the start of April. During the past week, hospitals admitted 132 patients with the disease on a daily basis, including four sent directly to intensive care. A week earlier, hospitals took on 115 patients per day, five of whom went to intensive care units.
Figures from the patient coordination service do not differentiate between hospital patients admitted because of serious symptoms of the coronavirus disease, and those who were admitted to a hospital for a different reason and then developed Covid-19. The RIVM and Stichting NICE said that the RIVM learned of 495 patients were admitted into hospital care because of Covid-19 symptoms during the last calendar week, 33 more than the previous week. Intensive care admissions jumped to 35, up from 19 the previous week.
Coronavirus infection figures are still rising in the Netherlands, but the week-to-week increase slowed to its lost point in weeks. Some 43,220 infections were diagnosed since Tuesday morning, a ten percent increase, according to the RIVM. Those infections were determined at a GGD facility, which saw testing also rise by ten percent to 53,000 for the week.
Sewage surveillance for the week ending on July 3 saw a 32 percent increase in coronavirus particulate matter found in sewage water. At that time, the basic reproduction (R) figure dropped to 1.01. That means that 100 people contagious with the virus on June 27 likely passed the infection on to 101 others. They then infected another 102 people. With the R-value falling closer to 1.00, the number of new infections is expected to level off. Should the R-value fall below 1.00, the number of diagnosed infections will likely decrease.
The sewer water analysis continued to show that the BA.5 version of the Omicron variant was still most common in the Netherlands, followed by BA.4 and BA.2.12.1. The newly-discovered BA.2.75 variant, known as Centaurus, has not yet been found in the country. "This variant has been found in India, Australia, Japan, Canada, the United States, Germany and the United Kingdom, among others," the RIVM stated.
Thirty deaths caused by Covid-19 were reported to the RIVM over the past seven days. There is no requirement to report those deaths to the RIVM in a timely fashion. As a result, some of the deaths may have taken place at the start of the month, or earlier.
