The Dean of the University of Brussels’ health faculty called for a closing of Belgium’s borders.
Dirk Devroey, who tweeted his call on Sunday, followed epidemiologist Pierre Van Damme in this plea.
“Closing borders seems the best option at the moment to avoid full lockdown and protect our economy,” he said. “But we need to do that NOW and not in 2 weeks when the British variant is massively in our country,” he added, calling for “a European initiative” on the matter.
Grenzen sluiten lijkt op dit moment de beste optie om volledige lockdown te vermijden en onze economie te beschermen. Maar we moeten dat dan wel NU doen en niet binnen 2 weken wanneer de Britse variant massaal in ons land is. Een Europees initiatief is hier zeker op zijn plaats.
— dirk_devroey ? (@dokter_devroey) January 10, 2021
While Belgium stopped short of closing its borders, it did put in place a mandatory quarantine and two coronavirus tests for travellers returning from red zones, partially over concerns regarding the British variant, which is thought to be more infectious.
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Federal Health Minister Frank Vandenbroucke on Sunday revealed that he had asked Belgium's testing task force to develop a system to better monitor travellers who test positive for a variant of the coronavirus.
Several dozen cases with a suspicious variant of the virus were discovered on Sunday, clinical biology professor Herman Goossens said on Sunday according to Het Laatste Nieuws.
Jason Spinks
The Brussels Times
