COVID-19 hospitalisations across Belgium starts to decline slowly: Reports

The number of new Covid-19 hospitalisations in Belgium has also started to decline slowly, following the trend of new infections, which have been dropping for several weeks now.

Between 5 & 11 April, an average of 8,585 new Covid-19 infections were identified every day, an 11% decrease from the seven days previous, according to the figures published by the Sciensano Public Health Institute on Friday morning.

Omicron BA.2- which is the highly transmissible Omicron variant, now accounts for 95.7% of all cases. A fresh version of the Omicron coronavirus variant (BA.4) has also been reported in Belgium, however, this is not yet showing up on Sciensano’s dashboard.

In the same period, the average number of PCR tests taken per day declined by 20% to 30,364.7. The positivity rate now stands at 31.1%, meaning slightly more than three out of ten(10) tests have a positive result.

In the same week, an average of 23.6 Covid-19 patients died on a regular basis, which is down by 1% from the last week. The overall number of deaths in Belgium since the start of the pandemic amounts to 31,165.

This figure also added people who died of another reason of death, but who happened to be infected, meant that they are an overestimate of the deaths caused by the virus.

Between 8 & 14 April, an average of 201.3 patients suffering from Covid-19 were admitted to hospitals each day – a decrease of 7% on the seven days previous.

This number reflects how many people are hospitalised directly due to the virus, not those who are admitted with another condition & then test positive for Covid-19.

On Thursday, a total of 3,148 people were in Belgian hospitals due to an infection, 25 fewer than on Wednesday. Meanwhile, the overall number of people being treated in intensive care sits at 183 (+2).

This number covers all patients who tested positive for Covid-19, including those who were first admitted with a different condition.