The intensive care unit is not ready for a peak of 400 corona patients in January. That is what intensivist Diederik Gommers, chairman of the Dutch Association for Intensive Care and OMT member, tells the NOS.
“Our nurses are really through psychologically, they need more time. There are now 130 patients in the ICUs, we can handle 180, but not a peak of 400. We then have to scale back regular care and we really don’t want that.” , he says.
According to Gommers, the advice of the OMT to the cabinet is therefore not to scale down any measures for the time being. He nevertheless calls a possible strengthening of the corona measures too early.
Significantly more IC patients
Last night via a OMT letter It is clear that many more people than previously thought will end up in the ICU due to a serious Covid-19 infection. According to new calculations by the RIVM, this concerns approximately 4800 people who are insufficiently protected because they have not been vaccinated or because the vaccination is not working properly.
That number is significantly higher than the previous one calculation from the RIVM from August. At the time, it was assumed that 2200 to 3400 unprotected people would still end up in the ICUs. On top of the IC patients, RIVM estimates that 23,000 people with a Covid-19 infection will also be placed in regular hospital beds. That is almost the same as the calculation from July.
Peak at 400
The estimated 4800 IC patients will not have to go to the hospital all at once, but will come in phases. That is why it is important to know what the expected daily occupation of the ICs will be. The RIVM has also made an estimate for this. Two scenarios are outlined for mid-January – the expected peak of the corona winter wave.
In the first scenario, RIVM assumes that the corona measures will remain exactly as they are now. Due to restrictive measures such as the corona pass, people have fewer contacts. As a result, RIVM estimates that daily IC occupancy will be 180 occupied beds, with a possible peak of 400 occupied beds in mid-January.
In the second scenario, all measures will expire and people will have the same number or even more contacts than before the pandemic. In that case, RIVM estimates that the number of occupied ICU beds with corona patients will be 500 in mid-January. The possible peak will then be 800 occupied beds.
View the daily number of corona patients in hospitals below:
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