An article from the Morgen published on Wednesday cast a chill over a crisis that had almost been forgotten: that of the coronavirus. We learn that, in its latest report, the Gems warned the authorities. If the epidemic figures continue to increase, the Codeco scheduled for April 22 will have to consider a return to code orange, on the famous barometer. However, for those who have forgotten it, this orange code could mean the return of the CST, the obligation of the mask in public places, gauges in party rooms, etc. Constraints that we got rid of on March 7 and that we hoped were sent to oblivion.
“This Gems opinion was written on March 28,” said Steven Van Gucht, virologist at Sciensano and member of Gems, today. “At that time, all the epidemic numbers were up and indeed they were in danger of pushing us past certain thresholds. But since then, we have seen a reassuring sign.
And this “reassuring sign” appears in the latest figures published by Sciensano, the public health institute. One figure is down: that of new contaminations per day. For the week of March 29 to April 4, a daily average of 10,351 new contaminations was recorded. This is -8% compared to the previous week (11,257/day). “This drop is especially visible in Flanders”, notes Steven Van Gucht. “We hope that Brussels and Wallonia, still on the rise, will follow this trend”.
In hospitals, there are 215 new admissions per day due to Covid (week of March 29 to April 4), against 207 the previous week, an increase of 4%. On this criterion alone, we should no longer be in code yellow or even in code orange but in code red (the threshold of 150 being largely exceeded)! What saves us, in the end, is the number of beds occupied in intensive care: 185 on April 4 (+ 9% in seven days), well below the threshold of 300 (code orange) and 500 (code red ).
Peak behind us? “It is quite possible, we very much hope in any case, that the peak of new hospitalizations has passed”, continues Steven Van Gucht. “We could have reached it on Tuesday April 5 with just over 300 new admissions, but that remains to be confirmed”. Can we trust the contamination figures, when we know that fewer and fewer Belgians still have the reflex to go get tested. “It is clear that we test ourselves much less than before and that the figure is certainly underestimated. But what is interesting is to observe the proportion of people infected out of the total number of people tested. And then we also monitor wastewater. There too we saw a peak, and it is starting to decrease. These decreases should be observed with a time lag on hospitalizations and then intensive care”.
Last Thursday in the House, the Prime Minister considered the figures for intensive care “reassuring”. So all you have to do is cross your fingers for the drop to be confirmed by the next Codeco, on April 22.