Ghent’s Covid-19 cases have doubled in just a week’s time as the coronavirus flares up in East Flanders.
Emergency services are calling the steep rise “worrying,” and say there is no clear explanation for the climb, reports De Standaard.
Ghent currently has the highest fourteen-day average for coronavirus infections out of all the major cities in Belgium, data from Sciensano, the Belgian Institute for Public Health, indicates.
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There were 971 positive coronavirus tests in the last two weeks from residents. In the week of 15 February, there were 133 positive tests per 100,000 residents. Now that number is 236.
“We cannot attribute it to specific neighborhoods in the city. It’s widely distributed. It is therefore very difficult to draw conclusions,” Berten Van Kerkhove, chairman of the Primary Care Zone, told De Standaard.
He added that even after removing the infections added by a recent outbreak on a tour boat, there’s still a strong increase.
The vaccination campaign is only just now getting underway in Ghent. The city is still in the process of vaccinating residential care workers and residents as a priority, with no vaccines yet available to the broader population.
Helen Lyons
The Brussels Times
