Belgium could reach the threshold for starting to relax the coronavirus measures of 75 Covid-19 hospital admissions per day by early February if the trends continue to evolve at this rate, according to health officials.
The decrease in the number of daily infections could partly be explained by the lower number of tests carried out, but there is also less virus circulation, said virologist and interfederal Covid-19 spokesperson Steven Van Gucht.
"The number of hospital admissions is also falling, and those are not dependent on the testing policy," he said, adding that there was a 24% drop compared to the week before the Christmas holidays.
"If these trends continue, we could get fewer than 75 hospital admissions per day at the beginning of February," said Van Gucht, referring to one of the thresholds to reach before Belgium can consider relaxations.
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Federal Health Minister Frank Vandenbroucke announced the set threshold for hospitalisations as well as the threshold of 800 infections per day at a previous press conference.
Recently, he clarified that once reached, those indicators should then remain stable for at least three weeks before any relaxations can take place.
On Friday 8 January, the Consultative Committee will meet again to discuss the situation, but Vandenbroucke already said that the plan is not to relax any rules.
Maïthé Chini
The Brussels Times
