Ahead of the Consultative Committee meeting on Friday, Belgium's Corona Commissioner Pedro Facon issued advice for well-thought-out and gradual relaxations to the authorities.
If the positive trend in the figures continues in the coming days, Facon agreed with Federal Health Minister Frank Vandenbroucke that Belgium could switch to 'code orange' on the coronavirus barometer from Friday 18 February, reports Het Nieuwsblad, which saw Facon's advisory report.
However, he is not in favour of completely scrapping the obligation to telework, as the employers' organisations have repeatedly requested. "We are in a gradual schedule from red to orange," Facon told VTM News on Thursday. "Many people come together at work and the daily commute also causes saturation on public transport."
Instead, he proposes a cautious phasing out: from four days of mandatory teleworking to three days. In previous days, experts from the GEMS group advising the government, including virologist Steven Van Gucht, also suggested a minimum of three days.
Face masks for children
Additionally, it is also still too early to completely lift the face mask obligation for children now – which the country's different education and youth ministers are strongly pushing for – but it could "also be done gradually," Facon said.
"I think the first step could be that, in a few weeks' time, we put aside face masks for the youngest children in primary education. After that, of course, we can consider it for secondary education," he said.
The plan could be to first scrap the obligation for children aged 6 to 10 (pupils in the first up to the fourth years), followed by those aged 11 and 12 (fifth and sixth years), and finally those in secondary school, explained Facon.
On Wednesday, Flemish Education Minister Ben Weyts called for a relaxation of the face mask obligation in primary education and announced that only two schools have been closed due to Covid outbreaks at the moment.
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"This makes the need for radical measures, such as face masks for young children, less urgent," he said, adding that his colleagues of the Francophone and German-speaking communities share his point of view.
Children's rights commissioner Caroline Vrijens agreed with Weyts, saying that masks for children up to 12 years old "can only be imposed if there is really no other possibility, for instance at the peak moments of the different coronavirus waves."
She explicitly asked to examine whether the general face mask obligation for young children is still "proportionate and reasonable" at this time. "More specifically, we ask that the face mask obligation at school is the first rule to be relaxed."
The Consultative Committee is meeting on Friday from 14:00 to evaluate the situation, the cabinet of Prime Minister Alexander De Croo confirmed to The Brussels Times. A press conference to announce the latest changes is expected to be held afterwards.
