Reduction in Covid-19 ICU patients continues with 7% decrease

There were 255 people with Covid-19 in intensive care on Thursday, a decrease of 20 compared to a day earlier. Six weeks after ICUs reached their peak number of Covid-19 cases, the critical care departments have now taken on more patients without Covid-19 in nearly two months.

The number of intensive care patients has gone down steadily since April 9, with the rate of recovery improving substantially in recent weeks. "If the decline continues at this rate, it is expected that we will have around 175 COVID patients [in ICU] next Monday, two weeks after the measures have been relaxed. The space this creates is necessary to resume other care," said Ernst Kuipers, the chair of the Dutch acute care providers network.

The treatment of people without Covid-19 has increased with some regularity as intensive care availability has expanded. On Thursday, 541 people without a suspected coronavirus infection were receiving intensive care, the most on a single day in at least seven weeks, the LCPS said in a statement sent to NL Times.

In total, 1250 people who were treated in an ICU recovered from the coronavirus disease and were fully discharged. Another 478 were still being treated in a different hospital ward after a stint in an ICU, and one was still being cared for at a German intensive care facility.

Of all Dutch intensive care patients, 808 have died in total.