The number of people suffering from Covid-19 in hospitals has decreased, although, the number of hospitalisations per day has risen slightly in Belgium.
An average of 53 patients suffering from Covid-19 were admitted to hospitals each day, up by 8% since last week, figures published by the Sciensano Institute of Public Health on Tuesday showed. This figure only includes the number of people hospitalised because of the virus.
Meanwhile, the total number of people infected with the virus in Belgian hospitals has dropped, to 790 – around 50 fewer than this time last week. The number of patients being treated in intensive care has dropped to 54 from 61 seven days ago.
This figure includes people who were administered for another reason and later contracted the virus.
Cases, tests and deaths
Between 5 and 11 November, the average number of new Covid-19 infections recorded per day remained stable at 650 (-1%).
The average number of tests taken per day increased slightly to 5,600 while the positivity rate has fallen to 13.6%, down from more than 20% two weeks ago. This means slightly more than one in eight tests has a positive result.
Credit: Belga
Omicron BA.5 remains the dominant strain, accounting for 91.5% of all infections. It is said to be no more infectious than the other Omicron subvariants and can circumvent accumulated immunity.
In the same week, an average of 4.3 deaths as a result of a Covid-19 infection was recorded (-21%). The total number of deaths in Belgium since the start of the pandemic is 33,000; however, this includes people who died of another cause but who were infected, meaning it is an overestimate of Covid-19 deaths.
Vaccination
The reproduction rate has risen to 0.99 from 0.83 this time last week. When this figure is below 1, it means that the epidemic is slowing down. The incidence (the number of new cases per 100,000 inhabitants) has dropped to 79 over the past 14 days, down from 111 last week.
As of Saturday, more than 7.22 million people received a first booster dose of the vaccine, representing 76% of over-18s and 62% of the entire population, while almost 3.74 million people have received a second booster dose – equivalent to 40% of over-18s and 32% of the total population.
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