Number of patients admitted to Croydon hospital with coronavirus falls by 80 per cent in three weeks as trust chairman insists majority of people with disease “would have had mild symptoms”

By Tara O’Connor, Local Democracy Reporter

There has been an 80 per cent drop in patients with coronavirus being admitted to Croydon University Hospital since three weeks ago.

Michael Bell, chairman of the trust which runs the hospital, updated a virtual Croydon cabinet meeting on Monday and also confirmed that 700 people have now recovered at the hospital, with 281 deaths.

He said: “We’ve admitted just under 1,000 people since the start of the outbreak.

“There have been others who have been supported by their GPs or community services to self-manage their conditions. And the vast majority of people would have had mild symptoms.

“But it is really, really important to note that 700 people of that 937 have been safely discharged home.

“Significant numbers of people do recover and have recovered and are back home with their families.

“If I had been giving this presentation three weeks ago I would have been talking about 250 inpatients in Croydon hospital with Covid.

“As of 4pm on Monday, we have less than 50 patients , so that is an 80 per cent drop in numbers in a three-week period.”

And Mr Bell said that at the weekend four new cases of Covid-19 were diagnosed over the entire weekend, compared to 30 plus each day three or four weeks ago.

But there are currently 15 patients in intensive care who have been there for more than a week.

To cope with the crisis, critical care beds at the hospital have been tripled to a total of 37.

There is also the ability to care for an extra 22 patients who need oxygen or ventilation, bringing the total up to 59.

Croydon council’s director of public health warned that despite numbers decreasing, the country is now at the most dangerous point in the pandemic, with the risk of a second and third wave of infection.

Croydon has been hit harder than other London boroughs in the pandemic.

The hospital trust puts this down to the borough having the second largest population in London, as well as age, gender, ethnicity, deprivation and co-morbidities – meaning one or more additional conditions affecting people.