Belgium suffers record COVID cases, adapts quarantine strategy
By Marine Strauss
BRUSSELS (Reuters) - Fuelled by the highly transmissible Omicron variant, Belgium's daily cases of COVID-19 reached a new peak this week, with health experts warning of between 30,000 and 125,000 cases a day by mid-January in the nation of 11 million.
"The fifth wave has started. The weekly average has risen by 82%," virologist Steven Van Gucht told a news conference following a government meeting on the coronavirus situation.
Home to the European Union institutions and NATO, Belgium registered 27,199 new COVID-19 cases on Jan. 3, beating a record set in Nov. 2020, and hit a fresh high of over 28,000 on Jan. 4, as Omicron hit the country a little later than Britain, Spain and France.
"We are going to have a difficult few weeks. We are going to break records in the number of infections; large groups of people will be infected," Prime Minister Alexander de Croo said at the news conference. "It will get worse before it gets better, but we are armed," he said.
The number of people in hospitals in also rising, especially in the Brussels region by 60%. Between 2,500 and 10,000 beds could be occupied by COVID patients by the end of January, Van Gucht said, without giving estimates for patients in intensive care units (ICUs).
Seeking to avoid staff shortages and encourage more vaccinations, the country's health authorities decided on Tuesday to remove the mandatory quarantine for inoculated people after coming into close contact with someone infected.
Schools will reopen as planned for in-class teaching on Jan. 10, but nightclubs remain closed and wearing a face mask is still required for anyone over six years old on public transport and in some indoor settings.
There were no immediate plans to make vaccination obligatory, unlike some other European countries which have imposed the measure for certain groups of people.
(Reporting by Marine Strauss @StraussMarine, Editing by Robin Emmott, William Maclean)
