In Brussels, the percentage of positive tests for coronavirus is increasingly significant, chief doctor of the Cliniques Saint-Jean Kenneth Coenye told Flemish television programme Terzake on Wednesday.
"This is worrying,” Coenye said. “I think a similar situation in Antwerp is not far away in Brussels.”
"We carry out about 500 tests a week in our hospital. In the last ten days we had about 6.8% positive results,” Coenye told Terzake. “That's much more than at the end of June. At that time we had 0.8% positive tests. That was around the national average at the time,” he explained.
Related News
- Coronavirus hospitalisations soaring on Belgian coast
- Antwerp's stricter measures will be template for other affected zones in Belgium
An increase in positive tests was also seen in other Brussels testing centres, according to Terzake. In Anderlecht, there is talk of around 7% of positive tests. In Auderghem and Laeken, the percentage is reportedly around 3 to 4%.
Coenye thinks a situation similar to Antwerp is near because there is “a similar population in the centre of Brussels as in areas of Antwerp where there are problems."
"They are people who often gather in large numbers under the same roof and people for whom life is largely spent on the streets," he continued. "This means that in these population concentrations the virus spreads much more easily".
Coenye also said that a large proportion of people with an immigrant background test positive. "We have a lot of people with dual nationality who, for example, want to travel to Morocco and therefore take a test. People in their thirties or forties. Our biggest fear is that these people will infect their parents or grandparents.”
The Brussels Times
