The COVID-19 crisis is not yet over, alerts Minister Vandenbroucke

While society is mostly back to normal, with Belgium in ‘code yellow’ on the coronavirus barometer, Federal Health Minister Frank Vandenbroucke warns that the crisis is not yet over.

The admission of COVID-19 patients to the hospital is slowly rising again, and some hospitals are already postponing non-urgent care, but the earlier warnings, from himself or infectious disease expert Erika Vlieghe, are seemingly not listened to, said Vandenbroucke.

He said, “I am not entirely at ease, we really should not forget that this virus is still going around. It is difficult in some hospitals. It is good that people realise that, it is a reason to be aware, but not to go back to ‘code orange’ tomorrow. Still, if the situation were to deteriorate significantly now, orange would be back on the agenda.”

Vandenbroucke regrets that the
Covid Safe Ticket (CST) did not remain in use a little longer, as he said it would have supported the booster campaign.

“One should not underestimate how important the CST was as a motivation to get vaccinated. As soon as the CST was no longer compulsory, vaccination stopped,” he said. “People in the vaccination centres will confirm that all kinds of reservations were suddenly cancelled at that moment.”

In Belgium, the effect of the CST on the vaccination campaign was not so clear, because the vaccination campaign was already well underway without the CST. “And we also introduced the CST very hesitantly. But it is particularly striking that the end of the CST coincided with the end of the vaccination campaign.”

Whereas, there are no figures for how many cancelled their appointments for their booster dose or made a decision not to respond to their invite, the Brussels-Capital Region also saw its vaccination uptake take a nosedive as soon as the nation moved into ‘code yellow.’