AMSTERDAM – Hospitals in the Netherlands on Tuesday announced they would suspend all non-critical care in the following weeks in hopes to try to control the rapid rise in COVID-19 patients due to the news strain.
Coronavirus infections in the country surged to 42% to 83,240 in the week through Tuesday, the National Institute for Public Health stated, following a series of record daily increases.
Early last week, the Dutch government imposed a tough five-week lockdown, closing all schools and non-essential stores, in an effort to curb the spread of the virus.
The Health Ministry on Tuesday announced all Dutch hospitals would delay non-critical care for an unspecified period of time, while the number of possible intensive care beds in the country would be extended to 1,450.
The ministry stated they discovered two Dutch patients infected with a virulent variant of the coronavirus first discovered in Britain, which has prompted much of the world to cut off travel ties with the United Kingdom.
One of the patients had not recently been to Britain, health minister Hugo de Jonge told national news agency ANP.
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