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A man carries chairs and tables to a bar in Brussels: the doors will be closed for the next four weeks. Image: keystone
Belgium is on the brink of a tsunami
Belgian politicians warn that control of the coronavirus could soon disappear. Testing labs are already overloaded and hospitals are on edge. 6 points on the situation in Belgium.
The tsunami is imminent
The Belgian health minister spoke clearly on Sunday. The situation in Wallonia and Brussels is “the worst and the most dangerous in all of Europe,” said Frank Vandenbroucke. The Health Minister said the pandemic can still be controlled today, albeit with enormous difficulties. At the same time, however, he warned: “We are very close to the tsunami, so we can no longer control what is happening.”
The new Prime Minister Alexander de Croo also drew attention to the seriousness of the situation. “It is worse than on March 18, when we announced the total closure,” said the head of government. Compared to then there are three times more cases in intensive care units, the situation in hospitals is tense and “will get even worse”.
Belgian Health Minister Frank Vandenbroucke: “We are very close to the tsunami.” Image: keystone
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This is how the number of cases has developed
The warnings from the head of government and the Minister of Health are not accidental. Corona infections have increased considerably in recent weeks. In the week until October 16, the Sciensano state health institute registered an average of 8,422 new infections per day, which corresponds to an increase of 69 percent compared to the previous week.
Last Tuesday, the record number of 12,051 new infections was reported. It has a population of 11.5 million inhabitants.
Number of cases per 100,000 people in an average of 7 days
First hospitals in the attack …
The infection figures provide only limited information on the severity of the situation in a country. So let’s use the hospitalization figures. Here you can also see that the situation in Belgium has worsened for several weeks.
On Tuesday there were 2,774 Covid-19 patients in Belgian clinics, 446 of them in intensive care units, the Belgian news agency reported. An average of 267 new patients come to the clinic every day, 95 percent more than in the previous seven days. The situation is still not as tense as at the height of the first wave, but the trend is clearly on the upside.
Number of hospitalizations per million inhabitants
The situation in hospitals is increasingly precarious. On Monday, around 60 nurses and doctors from the Erasmus hospital in Brussels briefly interrupted their work. They complained that they had not received any additional supplies or personnel since the first Corona wave in the spring. “We fall like flies,” a hospital employee told RTL television station. A nurse made serious accusations: “We have to continue working, even if we are positive and have a fever.”
The healthcare system in the Liège region is on the brink of collapse. Doctor Philippe Devos, who works in Liège’s intensive care unit, told rtbf.be on Monday: “The situation is worse than in March.” Even today it will get stuck and patients will have to be transferred to other provinces.
… test labs too
The first hospitals have reached the limit, the testing laboratories can no longer keep up with the second wave. On Tuesday, the Belgian authorities announced a change in the testing regime. People who have been in a risk zone or have had contact with high-risk people no longer need to be tested if they do not have symptoms. Under the new regulation, they must be quarantined for ten days without a test.
This action was taken because the testing labs are overloaded due to the high number of tests. This is expected to reduce the number of tests by around 40 percent.
An employee performs corona tests at a drive-thru center in Antwerp. Image: keystone
The rush for testing was so great that she had to wait too long for an appointment and a result. “If patients have to wait too long to get their results, a test is worthless,” said Belgian Crown Commissioner Pedro Facon, explaining the decision to change the testing regimen.
In the last few days, between 60,000 and 70,000 corona tests have been performed in Belgium with a positivity rate of around 15 percent. Authorities are now trying to expand capacities by November 15, so that 100,000 tests can be carried out per day. The Corona commissioner said the lab’s capacity had already increased tenfold in recent weeks, but that was not enough. There is enough evidence available, but not enough staff.
Now the measures are tightened
The imminent “tsunami” will now be prevented with a series of measures. The government decided on a partial shutdown for the next four weeks, which has been in effect since Monday. This includes the following points:
- All pubs and restaurants must close.
- There is a curfew between midnight and 5 a.m.
- Citizens are encouraged to work from home if possible.
- Outside of your home, you should only have contact with one person.
- The sale of alcohol will be prohibited from 8:00 p.m. and all Christmas markets will be canceled.
Different methods of counting corona deaths
In the week leading up to October 16, authorities recorded an average of 32 deaths per day. That’s a 15 percent increase compared to the previous week. Now fear is growing that the spring scenario will repeat itself when thousands of people lost their lives to Covid-19. Only in San Marino and Peru is the mortality rate higher. To date, Belgium has already mourned more than 10,000 deaths per crown.
A nurse examines a resident in a nursing home in Liège. Image: keystone
But Belgium’s death rates can only be compared to a limited extent with those of other countries. Because the Belgian authorities have slightly different statistics. Corona deaths also include those for whom death from the virus has not been clearly confirmed.
In nursing homes and nursing homes, the coronavirus was never detected in 75 percent of deaths, the cause of death was only classified as “possible”. That means: if the coronavirus is known to be spreading in a home, deaths in the next few days will be attributed to the virus, even if the dead have never tested positive.
The way of counting is considered controversial. However, a comparison made by “economists” in mid-May showed that the number of deaths per crown in Belgium almost exactly matches the excess mortality. In other countries such as Spain, Great Britain and Italy, however, there were quite large differences.
Speaking of excess mortality: April 2020 was the deadliest April in Belgium since World War II, as researchers from the Free University of Brussels found. Hopefully no more records are broken in this regard.
