17 November 2020: Belgium is bending the curve of the second wave…

17 November 2020: Update on The Corona Pandemic – The rise in the number of deaths being linked to coronavirus is slowing down. Also, there has been a further fall in the number of people being treated for the coronavirus in hospital. On average during the past week 463 patients were hospitalized a day. That figure is down by a fifth on the week. And there was more good news yesterday. Moderna, a US pharma company, announced that the analysis of interim results of their phase 3 trial show that its Covid-19 vaccine is 94.5% effective in reducing the risk of contracting the disease. We’ve now two vaccines at the eve of being approved by the both the FDA and the EMA.  In the wake of this news the government decided that the vaccines will be available in Belgium free of charge but that nobody will be obliged to get a corona vaccine jab. Still, they are targeting seventy percent of the population to be inoculated. A taskforce, including scientists and government representatives, crisis managers but also representatives of professional organizations and technical working group, will be set up to decide on the roll out of the vaccination campaign. Net-net, we’re heading for the right direction and hopefully the empty streets and squares will be filled with people again at the beginning of next year… Ghent, Belgium.