Slight drop in intensive care patients, but pressure on wards remains intense

Photo: Brandon Hartley
Photo: Brandon Hartley

The number of people being treated in intensive care wards in the Netherlands fell marginally on Wednesday as fewer new patients were admitted to IC than were discharged.

In total, 1,356 people are now being treated in IC wards in the Netherlands and a further 52 are in hospital in Germany, according to new figures from the national coordination centre.

In addition, 375 non-corona patients are also being treated in IC beds.

The pressure on intensive care wards remains ‘very high’, centre director Ernst Kuipers told a press conference, adding that the total number of patients is twice as high as normal.

‘We would appear to be stablising,’ Kuipers said. However, there could be no talk of relaxing the current strict rules on social distancing until the number of corona patients in IC wards had dropped below 1,000 he said. This, he said, will not happen within the next two weeks.

The government has extended the ‘intelligent lockdown’ until April 28 but has pledged to say if this should be extended again on April 21.

Earlier figures show the average stay of a corona patient in an IC ward is 23 days.

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