Test samples at the new test location of the GGD on the Plesmanlaan (Photo: Rob van Dullemen)
In recent days, a record number of new corona virus infections has been counted in our region. The hospitals in the West Region have therefore set ‘phase red’. Regular care will be scaled down further. This also applies to the hospitals in Leiden and Leiderdorp.
It was expected that the pressure on hospitals would increase. Yesterday the Leiden epidemiologist Frits Rosendaal explained to Sleutelstad that this was inevitable. Even if there were no new infections this week, the flow of patients would continue for some time. And because patients do not leave healthy again the same day, he predicted a reservoir of at least 2500 Covid patients in the hospitals. And according to him that could also become 5000.
Scaled down
But the hospitals in West Region report today that the flow of Covid patients has increased ‘faster than expected’. There is an acute lack of space in nursing wards. Patients are already regularly moved to hospitals outside the region. But that turns out not to be enough.
That is why at least 60 percent of deferred care is now being scaled down. This means that, just like in the spring, many patients with cancer, heart or other ailments have to wait longer for a proper diagnosis or treatment. The Bronovo Hospital in The Hague even closes the OR and all nursing wards to make room for corona patients.
Capricious
In the meantime, the number of newly counted infections shows conflicting signals. Nationally, there seems to be a slight flattening of those numbers in recent days. The almost 8,000 cases reported by RIVM today are a record, but the increase is less pronounced than last week. The numbers have now doubled in thirteen days, while that doubling previously only took ten days.
In the Leiden region and the larger GGD region Hollands Midden no such flattening can yet be seen. The numbers of positive tests show a very erratic pattern this week. For example, on Tuesday and Wednesday, Leiden had surprisingly low scores of 35 and 30 counted infections, but on Thursday and Friday new records of 92 and 96 infections were counted. The GGD region also had an absolute record of 525 new positive test results today.
These peaks and troughs say little about the actual number of infections per day. They are the result of varying delays in testing and processing in laboratories. Some of the test samples are analyzed in Germany, for example. Those results come in two to three times a week and that creates a new peak.
Epidemiologists therefore look at multi-day averages of the figures for a fair picture. Then the situation in Leiden and the region turns out to be less extreme, but the figures have not yet flattened out. The figures are rising faster than nationally, and in The Hague and Rotterdam, for example.
Mortality
The number of deaths from the coronavirus is clearly lower than in the spring so far. Patients enter the hospital with less serious complaints, need to go to the ICU less often and now leave the hospital faster and with fewer complaints than before. Due to the large numbers, the nursing wards are now becoming overloaded.
In our GGD region, the number of hospital admissions increased significantly last week (from 10 to 28), but there was no further increase in recent days. Eleven new patients were registered up to and including Thursday. There may be a delay in these figures.
In the meantime, the mortality from corona in our GGD region has clearly increased this week. Last week, only three deaths were counted, now there were seven until Thursday. Three of these were residents of Alphen aan de Rijn.
