The measures taken by the Consultative Committee on Friday will not be enough to stop Belgium's coronavirus figures from rising, according to virologist Marc Van Ranst.
In a first reaction after the press conference by Prime Minister Alexander De Croo and Federal Health Minister Frank Vandenbroucke on Friday evening, Van Ranst said that the measures are "insufficient."
"We hope that we are now experiencing a small wave, but when the numbers continue to rise, it will be insufficient," he said on VTM News.
"I was hoping there would be a part two. There was not so much content," Van Ranst said. "The planned relaxations are not happening. They ask the teachers to do their homework, but [the teachers] say they have already done it."
"We will be back here at the beginning of next week, I am afraid," he added.
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According to Van Ranst, we must now hope that the current rise is only a small wave, and that it will go down as soon as possible. "But these measures are not strict enough."
"If you wait longer, the measures you have to take will become more difficult," he added. "You get into a situation you cannot get out of without an emergency brake. The emergency brake is easy, but you don't want to pull it. It is very difficult."
"If you want to take measures, you have to take them now, and implement them immediately," Van Ranst said. "If you do not, you have to hope. This is the strategy of hope. After that, you only have the emergency brake."
According to him, politicians fear that the population does not want tougher measures, and that everyone is fed up.
"But what the population wants above all is for the situation to be resolved as quickly as possible, and then half-measures do not necessarily work best," Van Ranst stressed.
A list of the full measures that were announced by the Consultative Committee can be found here.
Maïthé Chini
The Brussels Times
