Nearly 9,000 more coronavirus infections; Hospital cases rising

The number of daily SARS-CoV-2 infections keeps rising in the Netherlands. On Saturday, the national health agency RIVM reported 8,868 new cases, the highest since January 8. Saturday's single-day tally was a 16 percent increase compared to the previous day and also a 16 percent rise versus last week.

This further pushed the seven-day rolling average up, which is now at 7,268. The total number of new infections for this week was 43,852, a 17 percent increase compared to the same period last week.

The three cities with the highest number of new infections on Saturday were Rotterdam (477), Amsterdam (385), and The Hague (220). In Rotterdam, infections went up by 82 percent compared to last week. In the Capital, the increase was 20 percent last Saturday. In the Hague, infections increased by 36 percent.

The number of Covid-19 cases in hospitals continues to rise as well. On Saturday, the patient coordination center LCPS reported a total of 2,238 Covid-19 patients. This is 17 more than the previous day and a nine percent increase compared to last week. The number of hospitalized patients has been steadily rising in the past week. Following this trend, we can expect the number of patients to be around 2,450 by this time next week.

The number of patients being treated in intensive care wards has been steadily rising. Currently, 643 patients are being treated in the ICU, a net increase of 18 compared to Friday. Another 1,595 patients are being treated in regular care facilities, a decrease of one patient compared to the previous day.

Consequently, hospitals are gradually increasing their staffing. This is in line with expectations. Ernst Kuipers, chairman of the Dutch network of acute care LNAZ, announced that "for the sake of continuity of care, the ROAZ regions are currently preparing to scale up their joint IC capacity to 1,450 beds in the course of next week."

Between the afternoons of Friday and Saturday, hospitals admitted 347 new coronavirus patients. Among them, 296 were placed in regular care wards, a ten percent increase compared to last week. Another 51 patients were moved to the intensive care, six percent less than last week.

In the period between Friday and Saturday, another 55,472 people were vaccinated. The brings the number of inoculations in the past seven days to 282,679. So far, 2,323,611 jabs have been placed.

Another 29 deaths were also reported as being caused by Covid-19, the RIVM said. That brought the seven-day average to 27. Fatal cases of the coronavirus disease were down nine percent for the week, the RIVM data showed.

To date, 1,245,007 people in the Netherlands have tested positive for the SARS-CoV2 infection. That includes 16,450 people who died from Covid-19.