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The number of testing was now much increased. In September an average of more than 30, tests were carried out daily compared to ca. The increased number of tests could partially but not fully explain the increasing number of infections. Nevertheless, the number of hospitalised coronavirus patients had continued to remain at a low level. On 18 September, a total of patients were receiving hospital care due to COVID, compared to almost 7, at the peak of the epidemic.
Other experts reacted in the media and questioned whether the situation had to be seen as alarming.
On 24 September, new coronavirus restrictions were announced by the government. The restrictions were eased on some points. The rule of the bubble of 5 was changed: each person in a household could have closer contact with up to 5 persons, with different persons each month.
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Beginning of October the average number of daily new infections had risen to The situation in Belgium was no exception compared to other countries in the EU. On 30 October, new figures showed that Belgium had the highest infection rate in Europe. As a result, the new Prime Minister, Alexander De Croo announced that a national lockdown would be reintroduced from 2 November onwards. Non-essential shops were to close, households were only allowed one visitor at a time, and school holidays were extended to 15 November. De Croo said that the restrictions would remain in place until at least mid-December.
Working at home - if possible - was encouraged to control the breakout. The employees affected included some with important tasks in the nuclear power plant. Engie Electrabel assured that the safety of the nuclear power plant would not be compromised. During the first wave in the spring, far fewer infections were detected. On 29 January, Belgium issued a travel notice advising against non-essential flights to China, Hong Kong excluded, with some travel companies cancelling all flights to China.
On 1 March, as a second case of coronavirus was confirmed in Belgium, phase 2 of the health risk containment strategy was activated. On 10 March, the government advised citizens to cancel any indoor scheduled events to be attended by more than 1, people for the month of March.
Companies were advised to have their personnel work from home as much as possible and allow flexible working times to allow a better spread of public transport use throughout the day. The authorities called this reinforced phase 2. Late in the evening on 12 March, after a meeting of the National Security Council , the Belgian government moved into the federal phase of crisis management, and ordered the closure of schools, discos, cafes and restaurants, and the cancellation of all public gatherings for sporting, cultural or festive purposes from Friday 13 March at midnight onwards.
Stricter social distancing measures were imposed from noon the following day until 5 April, with non-essential travel prohibited, non-essential shops to close, gatherings banned, with penalties for corporate and individual persons who failed to comply with the restrictions.
On 27 March, the National Security Council and the governments decided to extend the measures until 19 April end of the Easter vacation. On 6 March, Federal Minister of Public Health Maggie De Block criticised EU governments for blocking the export of medical masks at a time when global stocks were decreasing, asserting that they were acting against the spirit of the European Union. While the number of tests capped at 3, and 4, a day, an increase in stocks of the required materials [ further explanation needed ] was announced early April by the Federal Minister Philippe De Backer, to improve the testing capacity to 10, tests a day.
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At the outset, the Belgian authorities, mostly through their federal Minister of health Maggie De Block , had focused on reassuring by asserting that there was no reason to panic, [] that Belgium has good hospitals and laboratories [] and that the government was attentive to the evolution and well prepared for the possible arrival of coronavirus. An official website [] of the Federal Public Service Health dedicated to the coronavirus crisis was registered by the authorities before the first case was officially confirmed, at the end of January, [] to inform the public.
Every day, the latest developments on the epidemiological situation in Belgium are reported, with the new figures of confirmed cases, hospitalised patients and deaths, as well as general explanations and forecasts, or reminders of the need to respect the social distancing measures. In an apparent effort at transparency, a daily epidemiological bulletin and a set of raw data are made available on the Belgian Institute for Health website.
Experts and authorities also used the media to express themselves throughout the crisis, either to reproach citizens organising or taking part in so-called 'lockdown or corona parties ', [] or otherwise to give their point of view. On 20 March, the chairman of the Scientific Committee expressed the hope that the measures that came into effect on 14 March would lead to a stabilisation of the number of hospitalisations starting from the middle of the week beginning 23 March. Erika Vlieghe of the Scientific Committee mentioned that she expected the peak of the pandemic to occur in early April.
When the first measures were taken by the Belgian government on 10 March, in the form of recommendations, some expressed that more drastic measures were required, like Professors Herman Goossens and Marc Van Ranst who questioned the set limit of maximum 1, people for indoor events. Some media made positive criticism, such as the Financial Times who praised Belgium for its handling of the coronavirus crisis, [] claiming Belgium had shown that "a fragmented country" could still produce a clear response to the pandemic — by taking decisive actions earlier than other countries — and pointing out the daily briefings are not held by politicians but by scientific experts and spokespersons.
Just as many countries in the world, [] Belgium faced a shortage of personal protective equipment PPE such as respirators , surgical masks or face shields. Towards the end of January, Belgian newspapers highlighted the shortage of respirators and surgical masks and a retailer questioned whether Belgian would have enough masks if there were to be an outbreak of the virus, but the Federal Public Service Health claimed the Belgian hospitals had sufficient stock.
Upon reaching their expiration date in , minister of health Maggie De Block decided to destroy and not replace 6 million face masks. In Belgium, the organisation of care homes falls under the regional authorities. On 11 March the care homes were closed for all visitors in Wallonia and Brussels, and a day later in Flanders. After the closure, the sector requested more protective equipment, more training and guidelines for caretakers on how to handle infected patients, and more tests. However, not much was changed and the care homes kept operating with a lack of tests and a lack of protective equipment while being required to keep many infected residents in the homes.
Care organisations accused the minister of losing 3 weeks time, and being very late with an emergency plan. Steven Van Gucht from Sciensano explained this was partly due to a difference in counting, compared to other countries.
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This way of counting was criticised by Flemish Minister for Tourism, Zuhal Demir , as it would portray Belgium as bad in the fight against coronavirus and also would harm the Belgian reputation of being a prominent country in the pharmaceutical and biotech industries. Belgian authorities however defend their strategy for being the most transparent and the most detailed method, [] even if it results in numbers that are "sometimes overestimated".
When several countries published excess mortality figures, it appeared that the criticised way [ who? Causing still an underreporting of around deaths. While the neighbouring Netherlands had an estimated excess mortality of 6,, with only 3, reported COVID deaths in that same period. Causing an underreporting of around deaths. To cope with the increasing influx of patients, several hospitals started to build new temporary facilities, such as the UZA clinic in Edegem with the construction of containers [] or the Saint Peter's Hospital in Brussels with the set up of outside tents supported by the Belgian Red Cross.
Even if Belgium belongs to the EU's top five in terms of intensive care unit ICU capacity, with a number quoted to be around Some Belgian hospitals also appealed to the community to help, such as the UZ Leuven who called for mouth masks [] and financial support for research into COVID , [] or Brussels Saint Peter's hospital who called for donations to buy life-saving ventilators. Attempts to predict the progress of the coronavirus spread with compartmental models are undertaken at Ghent University Prof Jan M. In an effort to alleviate the hand sanitiser shortage in Belgium, several Belgian companies started to make alcohol [] or to manufacture hand sanitisers themselves, like the pharmaceutical company Janssen Pharmaceutica , [] the brewing company AB InBev [] and the Sugar refinery of Tienen , [] reaching a total of 1 million liters of gel and ending the shortage in the country.
To make up for the shortage of medical masks , the Belgian textile sector was requested but unable to produce masks at short notice because of the lack of manufacturing capacity and of raw materials. The vaccines division of GlaxoSmithKline , which has its headquarters in Belgium, helped with providing its infrastructure and staff free of charge to carry out at least 6, PCR tests per day on their Rixensart site, [] participating in an increase of the number of analyses in the country, as of 9 April.
The idea of forming an emergency government emerged. Following the containment measures of the federal government , many Belgian businesses had to shut down temporarily or have reduced staff numbers at work, resulting in 1.
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Belgian companies suffer from the corona crisis, such as producers of fries who reported a drop in demand for potato specialities. Just as most airlines in the world, [] the national flag carrier Brussels Airlines suspended all its commercial flights as of 21 March, originally until 19 April [] but delayed the restart of operations first till 15 May, [] then till 1 June, [] then gradually from 15 June.
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With bars, cafes and other businesses closed, Belgian breweries started delivering directly to people self-isolating at home. Some bars and cafes have raised funds by selling advance vouchers that are redeemable when the establishments reopen. From 12 March onwards many people started hoarding for the next one and a half-week. The closures and bans ordered by the authorities led to cancellation of many events in the country. The Belgian Institute for Space Aeronomy reported that the strong decrease in car and air traffic due to the confinement measures does not necessarily entail as strong a decrease in air pollution.
The number of confirmed infections is the number of samples tested positive by a reference laboratory. Diagnosed cases are an underestimate of the real number by a factor of between 5 and 10 according to Professor Marc Van Ranst. In the period of 1 to 6 March the number of detected cases grew on average exponentially with a doubling of the number of cases every day. In the period between 7 and 27 March the number of confirmed cases doubled on average every 3. The official reports from the national public health institute of Belgium do not refer to recovered people but only to discharged patients.
The patients are discharged after resolution of symptoms, even though they are not being tested again before leaving the hospital. The total number of recoveries is therefore underestimated, particularly in a context where there are many undetected positive cases presenting mild symptoms and recovering as well. The first recovered case was on 15 February The youngest fatality overall in Belgium was a year-old girl [] [] while the oldest person to die was years.
On 25 March , Belgium ranked 6th in the list of EU countries with the highest numbers of casualties, while on 1 April Belgium had the third highest death toll after Italy and Spain.
However, not all countries count the deaths in the same way. Deaths with clinical symptoms of the coronavirus disease are considered as "suspicious" and are included in the figures of COVID deaths, even if they were not tested. Unlike most neighbouring countries the Netherlands , France , Germany and the UK , the Belgian authorities were initially not willing to provide information or statistics on where the cases are located, beyond statistics for each region: Flanders, Brussels and Wallonia. Sciensano started to publish statistics per province starting 18 March.
In the period between 17 and 21 March it became clear that the province of Limburg was a hotspot for the coronavirus where the incidence grew much faster compared to the rest of the country: while on 17 March the incidence in Limburg was 1. Sciensano started to publish a map with incidence numbers per municipality starting 26 March. This was due to underreporting by a lab in the province. Note: For some reason, Sciensano is using different age ranges for confirmed cases and for deaths. The graphs below are based on the data collected by Sciensano [] Belgian Institute for Public Health , as per the actual dates.
Because of the use of actual dates and as some delay occurs in reporting, all figures are subject to retrospective updating. Total cases in Belgium cumulative Data from the last two days still have to be consolidated by Sciensano. New confirmed cases per day in Belgium Data from the last two days still have to be consolidated by Sciensano.