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For the second time, Belgium, with 11.5 million inhabitants, has become one of the worst affected countries in the world during the corona pandemic. More than 270,000 cases of infection have been detected and 10,500 have died.
Brussels and Wallonia, the French-speaking region where the city of Liège is located, are now the epicenters of the crisis in Europe, new figures show.
It sparks outrage among those primarily fighting the virus at the city’s crowded Liege CHU hospital.
Tsunami on the way
Beniot Misset, who runs the hospital’s intensive care unit, is clearly tired when he meets the AFP news agency.
– We are losing. We are overwhelmed. We are bitter, because we knew this was on the way for two months, and the decisions were not made in time, he says.
The corridors of the hospital’s corona ward are packed with staff and patients, and the rooms fill up even faster than during the first wave of infections this spring.
Christelle Meuris, who heads the corona department, says the number of cases on Wednesday nearly surpassed the number during the first wave.
Europe’s second major wave of infections is about to hit the city’s hospital hard. Photo: Francisco Seco / AP / NTB
The ward now has 18 patients on 26 beds, and his fear is that there will soon be two patients in each room.
– We fear that the latest measures will not be enough to flatten the curve. We see a tsunami on the way, he says.
Fear of the new Bergamo
People fear that Liege, which is a short drive from Germany and the Netherlands, will end up in a similar situation to Bergamo this spring: long before the pandemic spread in full force across Europe, the hospitals in it Italian city at breaking point.
Before entering a patient’s room, Assistant Nurse Hendrika Abourou dons a double bandage, protective clothing, gloves, and goggles.
– All steps are calculated. To move the patient, wash him, throw his towel in a specific bag. We have to think all the time and always be vigilant, he explains.
Many of his colleagues couldn’t take it anymore after the first wave and stopped working in hospitals entirely. About 20 percent of current staff cannot go to work.
Infected at work
In the intensive care unit, the nurse Thomas, who only wanted to say his last name, says that he still has to work, even though he tested positive for the coronavirus three weeks ago.
– I didn’t have a choice. I also didn’t have many symptoms. I told my boss, but he said, ‘We can’t replace you. You have to get down to work, ”he says.
The 33-year-old recognizes that it was a difficult decision to make, but stresses that “patients do not take a break”, and that he also did so in solidarity with his colleagues.
The department has 23 employees, and four corona-infected people are still working. The nurse says they are taking “even more precautions.”
– No choice
The department head, Misset, says there is no other way out.
– If I am a nurse or doctor and I am sick, but I have no pain and I am not lying in bed, I only need to put on the bandage. You have to work, he says.
The hospital began transferring patients to other Belgian provinces and Germany two days ago.
The French fault is for closures, which it believes are much more effective than curfews and the closure of bars and restaurants, as Belgium did to stall the boom of the new virus.
– Nobody took the situation seriously. This applies to politicians as well as most people, he says about the summer months.
– Now there is a trench warfare, with the difference that they are not bombs, but a virus. And it is the virus that decides, not us, not the politicians, not the scientists, he adds.
