25 March 2021: The government announced lockdown #3

25 March 2021: Virus levels in circulation have reached their highest levels in four months.  Pressure on hospitals in high. In the week to 21 March 4195 people tested positive. The figure is up 37% on the week. On average in the week to 23 March 215 patients with Covid were hospitalised each day. The figure is up 28% on the week. Over 600 patients are now in intensive care. Yesterday the Belgian government announced an Easter ‘pause’, which will go into effect from Saturday evening 27 March, and see new restrictions imposed for at least four weeks: (1) across the country, non-essential shops will only be able to receive clients by appointment, with a maximum of 50 people allowed in the shop at once, depending on the store size, (2) non-medical contact professions such as hairdressers and beauty salons will have to close their doors again, (3) all classes in primary, secondary schools, and higher education will be suspended, until at least 19 April, and (4) outdoors no more than four people will be able to gather together instead of 10 at present. In addition, the government will implement extra checks to drive compliance with mandatory homeworking. Yesterday’s good news was that J&J pledged that Belgium’s first 76,000 doses of its vaccine will be delivered from mid-April, 38,000 doses will be delivered in the third and fourth weeks of April. Vaccination is the decisive element that will accelerate the end of the crisis and relieve the pressure in hospitals. Let’s hope that the government strengthens their efforts to further increase the efficiency of the vaccine rollout and speed up its implementation. Today’s post is a snippet of yesterday’s corona walk in Blankenberge, Belgium.