Tilburg

The Covid-19 disease was already being transmitted among health care workers in Noord-Brabant from as early as Feb. 19, new research reveals—indicating that transmission was occurring over a week before the first case was officially recorded in the Netherlands late last month.

The first person to be diagnosed with coronavirus Covid-19 in the Netherlands is doing well and back at work, Tilburg mayor Theo Weterings said on television program Jinek on Tuesday. The 56-year-old man from Loon op Zand tested positive on February 27th.

The Dutch association for intensive care units NVIC is expecting between 500 and a thousand new Covid-19 patients next week. In order to prepare, patients currently treated in ICUs in Noord-Brabant will be moved to hospitals in less affected areas, the association said in a statement.

On Wednesday evening, the NVIC reported that 177 coronavirus patients were being treated in ICU. The association did not give a reason for the expected spike.

Tilburg and Breda, the two cities in the Netherlands home to the most patients with coronavirus, were also the two cities with the biggest increase in patients since Sunday. Both cities are located in the Noord-Brabant province, where at least 554 of the country's 1,413 patients reside. 

The patient data released by the RIVM showed that 249 of the country's 355 municipalities are home to at least one coronavirus patient. All 12 provinces in the Netherlands now have at least 10 people who have been screened by health officials and diagnosed with the virus. 

There was a significant increase in emergent coronavirus cases in the cities of Amsterdam, Noord-Holland, and both Maastricht and Sittard-Geleen in Limburg. Exactly 200 municipalities of 355 had at least one resident who has been diagnosed with the Covid-19 variant of the virus. The 959 patients in the Netherlands, including 12 who later died, resided in cities spread across every province in the Netherlands.

The national association for the hospitality industry in the Netherlands KHN is concerned about the impact the coronavirus Covid-19 is having. The number of cancellations is increasing nationwide, and the occupancy rate of hotels is falling. "There is no panic in the hotel industry, but there are hot pockets: Noord-Brabant, Rotterdam and Amsterdam are having a harder time," KHN director Dirk Beljaarts said to NOS. 

Eight new patients were diagnosed with coronavirus on Monday, health agency RIVM said on Monday. "This brings the total number of positive tests in the Netherlands to 18," the agency stated.

"Nearly all new persons diagnosed with the new coronavirus are travelers from northern Italy or are family contacts of a previous patient," the statement continued. The health service GGD is now investigating who the new patients have made contact with recently.

A resident of the Zuid-Holland city of Delft tested positive for the Covid-19 strain of coronavirus, health authorities in the Netherlands said Saturday night. She was the first person in that province and the seventh person in the country to be diagnosed with the virus.

The partner and youngest child of an Amsterdam woman who tested positive for coronavirus also carry the Covid-19 viral strain, health authority RIVM said in a statement on Saturday. They are the third and fourth patients to test positive in the Netherlands.

The two new positive cases, both males, were kept in quarantine with the woman at a home in Diemen even before the positive result was determined. They will remain there unless their conditions deteriorate, presumably for the next two weeks which the agency had said was the current protocol.

Even though coronavirus strain Covid-19 has reached the Netherlands, with the country now facing two positive test results, there is still no reason to panic, virology professor Eric Snijder said.

The Noord-Brabant man being treated for Covid-19 in the Elisabeth-TweeSteden hospital in Tilburg is doing well, Tilburg mayor Theo Weterings said in a press conference on Friday. The mayor also confirmed that the man celebrated carnival in his hometown, but said that he was not yet contagious when this happened, NOS and NU.nl report.

The health authorities are considering discharging the man, so that he can be quarantined in the comfort of his own home in Loon op Zand, Weterings said.