The number of patients hospitalised in Belgium as a result of the coronavirus has again exceeded 1,000, climbing to 1,032, according to figures updated Friday morning by Sciensano, the public health institute.
This is almost a third (30 percent) more than numbers from a week earlier. The one-thousand mark had not been reached since 4 June.
There are also around 230 patients in intensive care, one fifth (19 percent) more than a week ago.
Over the past seven days, an average of 93 Covid-19 patients were admitted to hospital each day, 50 percent more than during the previous week. Between 12 and 18 October, an average of more than 3,600 infections per day were also recorded in the country, with that figure almost 60 percent higher than it was a week earlier.
On Monday 18 October alone, there were 6,533 new cases, according to the latest consolidated figures.
This total is higher than the peak of the 3rd wave experienced last spring (when 6,333 cases were recorded on 22 March). The next highest figure is from November 2020, during the 2nd wave.
Also between 12 and 18 October, the number of Covid-19 tests administered increased by more than a tenth, to 51,300 tests.
The positivity rate is now 7.1 percent (+1.8 percent) while the virus reproduction rate is 1.34 (+26 percent). When higher than 1, this indicator means that the epidemic is tending to accelerate.
The incidence, which indicates the number of new cases per 100,000 inhabitants, reached 358.8 over 14 days (+55 percent).
On average, 13 coronavirus patients died each day during this period, almost a fifth more than in the previous week. This brings the total number of deaths in Belgium since the start of the pandemic to 25,835.
Around 87 percent of adults in Belgium have received at least one dose of vaccine, while 86 percent are fully vaccinated, but the numbers vary by region.
Flanders has the highest vaccination rate (80 percent having received at least a first shot), followed by Wallonia (70 percent) and Brussels (56 percent).
