21 May 2020 Update from A Semi-Locked Down Ghent

The coronavirus statistics continued to improve yesterday. Also, other figures that give the earliest signs about which way it is going - the number of people going to the doctor's with possible symptoms and the number of civil servants taking sick leave - is also down. All good news on the corona front but there is another challenge presenting itself. Large parts of Belgium have not seen any decent rain since mid-March and ground water levels are going down. Will this mean that we will have to manage both the economical fallout of the corona crisis and a period of extreme drought and water scarcity? The picture on display today is another vignette from downtown Ghent – Vleeshuisbrug, Ghent, Belgium