Yves Van Laethem: “The number of clusters is always higher in the workplace”
Like every Friday, the Crisis Center takes stock of the health situation in Belgium.
Lhe experts from the Crisis Center took stock of the country’s health situation during its second and last press conference of the week. Coronavirus numbers continue to play yo-yos. “We are seeing a slight increase in the infection rate. There is a 2% increase on a weekly basis, ”said interfederal spokespersons. “The number of hospitalizations and deaths is stagnating,” they added.
According to Steven Van Gucht and Yves Van Laethem, citing figures from the Sciensano Public Health Institute updated on Friday morning, between March 5 and 11, there were an average of 146.1 hospital admissions per day. due to coronavirus, a decrease of 6% compared to the previous reference period. In total, 1,910 people are still hospitalized due to Covid-19, including 446 patients treated in intensive care.
According to figures from Sciensano, between March 2 and 8, 2,422 new contaminations were detected on average per day. “This increase is particularly marked among children under 10, for whom the increase is 29%. The highest infection rate remains among adolescents, and people aged 30, ”explained Yves Van Laethem.
“The number of clusters is always higher in the workplace, and this figure is still increasing slightly (40%)”, also explains the virologist. “These clusters mainly take place in sectors where teleworking is difficult, such as the meat processing sector, but also the healthcare sector or even within the police,” explains Yves Van Laethem. In schools, the number of homes is down slightly (29%), in residential care centers, the number of homes has fallen sharply and is now stable (11%).
Still between March 2 and 8, nearly 43,900 tests on average were carried out each day. The positivity rate, ie the proportion of positive tests in relation to all the screenings carried out, reached 6.2%.
The reproduction rate (Rt) of the coronavirus is set at 0.99. When it is greater than 1, it means that the transmission of the virus is progressing.
“In terms of deaths we continue this slow decrease,” said the experts. Over the period of March 2 and 8, 25.6 people died on average per day from the virus, bringing the toll to 22,370 deaths since the start of the pandemic in Belgium.