A man walks out the The Ancienne Belgique (AB) concert hall, which is closed until April 3, 2020, as ... [+]
Belgian government announced on Thursday some of the strict measures adopted in Italy, to avoid further spread of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19). With major international organizations in Brussels, a provisional government and a federal healthcare system, there might have been a recipe for disaster that the country just escaped.
Starting from Saturday, bars, restaurants and clubs will be shut down, sporting events cancelled and school lessons suspended. Supermarkets and pharmacies will keep normal service, but non-essential shops will close on the weekends. Workers are in general advised to stay home, or stagger their hours.
"When we take measures which upset the structure of society as we have just done today, we do it first because it is necessary, we do it on the basis of scientific recommendations to avoid that the situation is more serious afterwards, and we are doing so eminently together that all of us can move forward together," said the Belgian prime minister Sophie Wilmès.
"This is not a lockdown," Wilmès insisted. "We want to avoid situations like Italy. These measures must prevent lockdowns."
Reaching a decision, however, may have been hindered because Belgium is split into three semi-independent regions: Flanders, Wallonia and the Brussels-Capital Region - which has become the ‘heart’ of the European Union and where NATO Headquarters is also based.
Brussels citizens, including EU employees, worried about the length of testing procedures during the past weeks. Until more labs were opened recently, it took at least three days from when samples were taken and sent to an already overwhelmed laboratory in Leuven to when results arrived.
The first case at NATO was found on Tuesday. The European Council (where a case was discovered already the previous week) and Parliament took some measures on Wednesday. The first cancelled all meetings with member states and the latter closed on Thursday.
“Since the beginning, the Commission provided for flexible working arrangements (teleworking) for colleagues reflecting the specific needs,” a statement from the Commission reads. “The Commission is monitoring the situation closely and stands ready to review or introduce further measures if need be.”
To date, Belgium counted 556 cases (which authorities say underestimates the real number) and three deaths due to the virus. The current policy is to test only people who get hospitalized, to know whether they need to be isolated or not. So there is no test for suspected cases of people who are sick at home and there is no active testing campaign for diagnostic at the moment of writing. The main reason is that testing capacity is limited.
“Even if I’m likely positive, because I was in contact with positive people coming back from Italy and I had mild symptoms, and even if I am in contact with weak people for whom this poses some risks, I won’t be tested because the process is so complicated that it’s practically impossible,” said a doctor working in Brussels.
The European Association Summit took place Tuesday and Wednesday, attracting 170 people. Organizers (visit.brussels) refused to cancel the event and attendees agreed it's been for the best. One argued this was "a symbolic gesture of resistance against panic".
After Thursday’s announcement, people rushed to supermarkets and stockpiled in fear of upcoming shortages.
Asked if the government’s decision will be enough to contain infections, Marius Gilbert, who leads the Spatial epidemiology Lab (SpELL) at Université Libre de Bruxelles, told Forbes.com: “It’s very difficult to say, what is certain is that it is a very strong signal and we hope it will be effective in curbing the rise of cases. But only the future will tell us if the measure was sufficient to stop the transmission.”
For now, Italy’s example seems a time machine for Europe. “The Italian government has been facing a much more difficult situation, in the sense that - when they discovered the first cases - the epidemic was already much more advanced and all the actions taken were somehow reactive and following the epidemic. They have been a bit lacking behind the progression of the epidemic and that’s what made the fight against it so difficult in Italy, because they were facing immediately a much more extended circulation of the virus.”
The hope is to avoid overcrowding in hospitals and pressure on medical staff and resources. “In Belgium, as well as other countries, the number of cases is more limited so those different measures are still taken at a moment when the number of cases is relatively low. There is a better chance that, applied now, they may prevent the problems in the hospitals.”
