Acute care leader: "Race against time" in 3rd coronavirus wave; Covid hospital total stable
Further increasing the rate of Covid-19 vaccinations in the Netherlands is urgently needed to prevent or at least minimize the impact of a third wave of the disease on the country's healthcare system, said Dutch acute care network leader Ernst Kuipers. "You can already see the effect of the vaccinations in nursing homes: there are fewer infections and mortality has fallen," he told regional broadcaster RTV Rijnmond.
The Netherlands has administered 1,620,090 vaccine doses since January 6, including about 24 thousand on Sunday, data from the RIVM showed. That brought the seven-day moving average down to 40,489, twelve percent lower than a week ago possibly due to a delay in AstraZeneca vaccine deliveries.
Kuipers wants to see that figure double within a month. "It's a bit of a race against time: are we going the fastest with vaccinations and keeping it under control for now? Or will the virus have the opportunity to re-emerge?"
On Monday afternoon, there were 1,905 patients with the disease being treated in Dutch hospitals. Though up three percent from Sunday, the total has been roughly the same at the start of each of the previous three weeks.
"The outlook remains stable with limited fluctuations over time," said patient coordination office LCPS in a statement. "We expect the British variant of the coronavirus to take over, and the number of patients in hospitals to rise in the coming period," the office said referring to the B117 coronavirus mutation.
Though the total number of daily coronavirus admissions has remained stable, an average of 40 people have been admitted each day to intensive care, up from 26 a week ago. There were 558 people in an ICU with Covid-19 on Monday, up 13, and 1,347 others in regular care, a net rise of 41.
"We are not in the dreaded increase announced by the RIVM a month ago. The British variant seems to be spreading faster, but due to the current [lockdown] measures it still seems to be contained," Kuipers said.
The RIVM announced on Monday that 3,924 more people have tested positive for the coronavirus infection, which pushed the moving average up to 4,554. That figure has been mostly stable for two weeks.
To date, some 1,123,909 positive coronavirus tests have been diagnosed in the Netherlands. A total of 15,861 people known to have Covid-19 died from the disease.
