[Code dark grey in hospitals: short hospital admission and high mortality due to COVID-19]. / Code donkergrijs in het ziekenhuis.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, we have experienced several waves in which the number of hospital beds occupied by patients with COVID-19 has varied greatly. In December 2022, hospitals were under a tremendous pressure, and were forced to upgrade their capacity to phase 2D ("Code Dark Grey"). This is the last phase prior to phase 3 ("Code Black"), in which we would be unable to treat all patients and would be forced to triage based on medical and non-medical characteristics of the patients. In this brief analysis, we demonstrate that phase 2D is characterized by a relatively short mean period of hospital admission and a higher hospital mortality.

[We still have to continue to test, test, test]. / We moeten nu nog blijven testen, testen, testen.

Testing for COVID-19 is performed curatively for disease detection and as screening tool to prevent spread for public health and infection prevention. Testing for access is an important additional measure to provide information about asymptomatic or pre-symptomatic infection. In a recent meta-analysis 42.8% showed no symptoms with an estimated percentage of asymptomatic infections of 35.1%. False positive testing is not completely preventable but allows events such as the Eurovision Song Contest, professional football, the Olympic Games or Formula 1. Their trade-off is not purely medical but also political-economical. The choice to carry out many Dutch tests in foreign laboratories is inefficient, while at the same time the opportunity to strengthen regional innovation, training and infrastructure is missed. Cooperation between municipal health departments and regional laboratories and extra service from regional laboratories (such as fast variant PCR) are frustrated this way. We hope this situation will improve rapidly.