New coronavirus infections have plateaued in Belgium after surging in recent weeks, epidemiologist Yves Coppieters said in Saturday’s edition of La Libre Belgique.
“We are over, or almost over, the spike in the epidemic that we have experienced over the past three weeks,” the Université Libre de Bruxelles (ULB) epidemiologist said. "We have stabilised transmission, and the models show that the figures will go down in the next few days. We can reassure the population on the shape of the curve. It is stabilising, and then it will go down.”
However, “this is nothing like the first wave,” Coppieters noted. “Now, it’s mainly young people who are affected, so there are few hospitalisations.”
"The population has attained a reasonable level of social-distancing and protective practices that can be sustained over time and enable us to maintain this maximum transmission level, this transmission plateau,” the epidemiologist explained.
“We won’t reach the zero-risk level,” he cautioned. “This plateau is the balance that needs to be maintained throughout the winter.”
However, he felt young people in their twenties were not doing enough to protect fragile population groups, particularly seniors, as is can be seen from the “spread in the transmission of the virus to the older group.”
The Brussels Times
