The medical staff with COVID-19 mentioned above will continue to work as long as they do not have symptoms. Liege is Belgium’s 3rd largest city and is a hotspot for SARS-CoV-2 virus in this country.
Belgium’s health officials have warned that the country could run out of special-care beds within the next two weeks and some hospitals are facing a shortage of medical staff. According to the National Institute of Public Health Sciensano, this 11.5-million-people country has reported an average of more than 13,000 new cases of COVID-19 every day for the past week. This is the second outbreak of COVID-19 in Belgium, with the rate of new cases per 100,000 population, second only to the Czech Republic. Specialty care units will reach a capacity of 2,000 patients in the next 15 days.
Liege, the largest city in French-speaking Wallonia, has the highest incidence rate in Belgium. On October 27, communication director of Liege University Hospital, Mr. Louis Maraite, said that due to the lack of medical staff, the hospital “has no other option” other than to bring doctors and nurses who test positive for COVID-19 but have no symptoms to work. According to Mr. Maraite, medical staff infected with COVID-19 account for 5-10% of the hospital’s total workforce. The medical staff showing fever-like symptoms were told not to come to work.
The MontLégia CHC Hospital in Liege also confirmed that, medical staff who tested positive but had no symptoms were asked to continue to work on a voluntary basis and to strictly adhere to disease prevention measures, including limited contact with their co-workers.
The aforementioned staff are working in medical facilities and can work in all departments except for geriatrics, neonatology and oncology, where patients are “particularly vulnerable”.
Currently 1,000 beds intensive treatment in Belgium have been used. A total of 1,250 beds will be used at the weekend. The number of COVID-19 patients hospitalized and requiring special care doubled every 8 days.
The Belgian government imposed new restrictions on people last week in an effort to slow the spread of the SARS-CoV-2 virus in the country. The curfew is imposed daily from midnight the night before to 5 a.m. the next morning. Restaurants and cafes are not allowed on-site guests. Residents must work from home if possible. Amateur sports events have been canceled, while professional games take place without spectators.
To date, Belgium has recorded a total of over 333,700 cases of COVID-19 and nearly 10,900 deaths.