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Nearly 7,000 hospital patients are currently taking a corona bed. But who is exactly behind the numbers? A man of 70 years, 6 feet tall and weighing 100 kilograms, it turns out. The average corona patient also has an underlying condition, but one in three is perfectly healthy. Virologist Steven Van Gucht and various doctors have said this in Het Laatste Nieuws.
All hands on deck in Belgian hospitals, where our healthcare staff do their utmost to provide the best possible care for the 6,823 Covid-19 patients. First the good news: of the patients who end up in hospital, fewer end up in intensive care. However, those who are in intensive care still have a 33% chance of dying.
The duration of the average hospital admission has also decreased in the second wave. The average corona patient of the second wave still resembles that of the first wave: old, male and obese.
Age and gender
“In the first wave, the average age was 71 years, now we are around again from 70 years old, ”says virologist Steven Van Gucht of Sciensano to HLN. Philippe Devos, head of intensive care at CHC, a hospital in the severely affected province of Liège, also sees more and more elderly patients arriving in contrast to two weeks ago.
We already knew that the virus discriminates on gender, and that hasn’t changed in the second wave either. Men do not become infected more often, but do become more seriously ill. It has already been discovered that men have higher levels of the enzyme ACE2, which helps the coronavirus to infect cells, in their blood. But men are also more likely to be obese, have high blood pressure and other underlying conditions.
Obesity
“Most patients admitted to intensive care are still men with a BMI of more than 31”, says Sabeth De Waele, head of Intensive Medicine at UZ Brussel. As a man of 1.80 meters you have a BMI of 31 if you weigh just over 100 kilos. From a BMI of 30 you are obese, like 16% of Belgians.
“Unfortunately, there are many Belgians over 50 who are overweight,” says Philippe Devos. “On average, most patients have an underlying condition, such as obesity, elevated blood pressure and the occasional diabetes problem.”
“But still”, Devos emphasizes, “- one in three patients has no medical history. Until admission, they were in perfect health and a healthy weight. In general, in this case it concerns people over 65 years of age. ”
“Mouth masks provide less serious illness”
Where the second wave fares better compared to the first wave is that, despite the higher hospital admissions, fewer people end up in intensive care. According to Steven Van Gucht, this is because hospitals have introduced an intermediate department: the medium caredepartment. “There, patients are given oxygen without having to be intubated. That way you save capacity on intensive care ”, it sounds.
But Philippe Devos has a different explanation. “I suspect that the explanation lies in the fact that we have all started wearing mouth masks, and that has not missed its effect. Beware: even if you wear a mask, you can get infected, but with a very small dose of the virus. In that case there is a good chance that you will become much less seriously ill. ”
Anti-inflammatory dexamethasone also works. “It’s not a miracle solution, but many patients do improve quickly when we administer this corticoid,” says Devos. As a result, the average hospitalization now takes about six days, compared to ten days in the spring. “But for patients for whom dexamethasone does not work – so there are too – we see little difference. Then you are quickly on a hospitalization of at least two to three weeks. ”
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