After being a red area for almost nine months, Belgium is turning orange again, given the sharply reduced number of corona infections. That is clear from the figures that the health institute sciensano published on Monday. The European Center for Disease and Prevention Control (ECDC) requests the most current corona figures from all Member States every Tuesday, after which the map of Europe with the updated color codes is published on Thursdays based on those data.
Since Tuesday's figures are expected to be slightly lower than Monday's, it is almost certain that Belgium will be moved from red to orange on Thursday after almost nine months. Only four European countries currently have higher corona figures than Belgium. These are Lithuania, Latvia, the Netherlands and Denmark. A country like Germany is well on its way to becoming a green zone.
Indian variant
However, there is also the necessary concern for, among others, the Indian variant, which is still advancing further. The road to freedom seemed in sight for the British, but now that the contagious Delta variant is taking hold and the corona figures are rising day after day, the British have to postpone 'Freedom Day' by four weeks. Boris Johnson had to retrace his steps. This new variant accounts for no less than three in four new infections in the country.
Three million Belgians have now been fully vaccinated, which is no less than 33 percent of adults older than 18 years. And 60,9 percent have already had their first injection. Even if you have been vaccinated, testing remains extremely important to monitor the situation.
predominantly asymptomatic
The vaccines against Covid-19 have proven to provide exceptionally high efficacy, but no vaccine can provide 100% protection. Monitoring and describing the infections that occur in fully immunized individuals, the so-called “breakthrough infections”, provides valuable information about the effectiveness of the vaccines.
Since the beginning of the Covid-19 vaccination campaign, Sciensano follows the actions of Infections that occur in fully vaccinated individuals, or “breakthrough infections,” up close. Out of a total of 1.421.067 fully immunized individuals, only 0,32% (4.526) ran a Covid-19 infection on. In addition, more than two-thirds of these breakthrough infections did not cause symptoms similar to those of Covid-19. These results provide an important indication of the effectiveness of the Covid-19 vaccines in Belgium.
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