Dutch hospital admissions for coronavirus have gone down, returning to their March 23 level, according to new figures from the public health institute RIVM.

In total, 237 more patients have been admitted to hospital, compared with 308 in Wednesday’s briefing, the RIVM figures show.

The official death toll rose by 148, one up on Wednesday, which takes the total number of people who have died of coronavirus to 2,396. The figure only includes people who have been tested for the disease.

The number of positive tests rose by 1,213 to 21,762 as the Netherlands widens its testing net to include more healthcare workers.

Intensive care

Officials will  say later on Thursday if the number of people being treated on intensive care wards is continuing to decline. There was a marginal drop 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 Wednesday’s figures from the national coordination centre.

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

Pressure

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.