By Robbert van der Linde
08 dec 2023 om 05:02
Anyone who contracts corona now will receive no different advice than for another respiratory infection. But the coronavirus still poses a greater risk than other viruses, experts tell NU.nl. Especially for patients who already have health problems, but also for people who are otherwise healthy.
In brief
Recently, the number of patients with corona in hospitals has increased significantly. Last summer, there were several dozen corona patients in a hospital bed. There are now more than six hundred.
On average, a corona infection is now much less risky than during the pandemic. “You certainly don’t have to panic in the event of an infection. But a lot of people are still in hospital due to corona. And they are certainly not simply admitted,” says epidemiologist Alma Tostmann.
“It is not a crisis in healthcare now,” Chantal Rovers adds. As an internist-infectiologist, she treats people with infectious diseases in hospitals. “We rarely see people who are younger than sixty and have no other health problems in hospitals with corona. But it is important that people realize that there is a large group of people who always remain vulnerable.”
Corona is (still) not the flu
According to Tostmann and Rovers, the fact that the same advice applies to corona infections as to other respiratory infections does not mean that they are equally risky.
“Flu also causes hospital admissions and deaths in people in poor health. But corona still causes many more hospital admissions than flu,” Tostmann explains. “Specific measures are still in place in hospitals to prevent the spread of viruses, but in general the population seems to be following the advice less.”
It is also striking that corona is less seasonal than flu. “Flu has a specific season, which has peaks and valleys. You can still contract corona all year round. In total, there are many more corona infections per year than flu cases,” says Rovers.
picture of @Datagraver pic.twitter.com/RByLukE7iS
— Alma Tostmann 🦠📊🕵 (@AlmaTostmann) December 1, 2023
Through and with corona in the hospital
Hospitals distinguish between different corona patients. On the one hand, there are people who end up in hospital specifically due to corona. These are almost always the elderly and patients with an underlying condition.
There are also patients who go to the hospital for something else (such as a broken bone) and then test positive. They would (probably) not have ended up in the hospital if they only had corona.
According to the NICE Foundation, this was certainly the case half of the hospital admissions surrounding corona, the disease itself is the main reason. Corona played a major role in another quarter, although it was not the main reason that those patients were admitted.
“People who are only admitted with corona still put pressure on healthcare. They are nursed in isolation, because you do not want other patients or medical staff to be infected,” Tostmann emphasizes.
Long-term complaints can happen to anyone
It has been known for some time that vulnerable people in particular can become seriously ill from corona. But there is also a risk of post-covid syndrome (previously known as long covid) for young, healthy people. It is estimated that around 90,000 people in the Netherlands suffer from long-term complaints after a corona infection.
“Post-Covid syndrome can affect anyone, including people who are young and healthy, even children,” says Rovers. “Most people recover from a corona infection, some faster than others. But some have had complaints since 2020 and are still not better.”
According to the infectious disease specialist, the risk of long-term complaints is greater with the coronavirus than with most other viruses. “With flu there is also a chance of long-term complaints after infection. But this is much less common than with corona.”
Just as with serious complaints, the risk of post-covid syndrome now appears to be smaller than during the pandemic. But even after vaccination the chance is not zero. And there is no cure yet. Research is still being done into this.
Next week, NU.nl will publish an article about a promising medicine for long-term complaints for vulnerable people.
2023-12-08 04:02:12
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