Just one in five Covid-19 patients at a Newcastle hospital now need ventilators as treatments improve to fight the virus.
The figures are for the sickest coronavirus patients, who have been admitted to the intensive care unit at the Royal Victoria Infirmary (RVI).
According to an exclusive report by the BBC, many patients are now "sitting up, engaging with the nurses, reading or watching TV" compared to earlier in the pandemic when there was almost universal reliance on ventilators.
NHS staff are using more non-invasive means of giving oxygen, as treatment for the deadly virus has evolved.
Cheap, readily available steroids - such as dexamethasone - have been clinically proven to help treat the virus and cut deaths.
According to the BBC report, over half of the RVI's patients are currently on trials to treat the virus. That includes blood plasma therapy.
NHS England figures show hospital admissions are creeping up across the country, up over 25 per cent in the week ending October 24.
Nationally, just under a thousand people per day are currently being admitted to hospital. Of those, around a quarter are in the North East and Yorkshire although infection levels are now currently falling in much of the North East.
The latest figures showed there were 71 patients being treated by the Newcastle Hospitals NHS Trust, with 13 in ICU. That is just under half the level witnessed at the peak of the pandemic's first wave.
While many of those interviewed by the BBC are older patients, the report states several younger people have also been admitted.
And Dame Jackie Daniels, the trust's chief executive, said rising cases meant backlogs elsewhere.
While key services, such as cancer, have not been impacted, others such as cataracts have. Across the trust, she said there's currently a backlog of "tens of thousands of patients".
And as the second wave continues, she added: "At the moment we're managing, but are not complacent, because it's going to be tough."
The RVI was the first hospital in Britain to treat known Covid-19 patients back in January.
