3 November 2020: The first long-awaited glimmers of hope are starting to shine...

3 November 2020: Update on The Corona Pandemic - Although the increase is slowing, the number of hospital admissions and the number of people dying after having become infected with the novel coronavirusremains very high. There are currently 6,823 COVID-19 patients in Belgian hospitals of which 1,223 are on the intensive care ward. This is well above half of all available intensive care beds.  According to Steven Van Gucht, one of Belgium’s lead virologists, the next two days will show whether the number of hospitalisations is stabilising or not and as a consequence if we will stay under the maximum capacity of 2,000 ICU beds during the next two weeks. The other silver lining is that as of today Belgium will increase significantly its testing capacity with the opening of the first three of what will be 8 so-called “super labs”. The super labs will serve to take some of the strain off the clinical laboratories and make it possible to be able to once again test people that are asymptomatic. Just at the time that there is some glimmer of hope that we may avoid that the second wave of the corona pandemic turns into a nationwide tragedy the fear for a resurgence of extremist and terrorist groups increases. Last night Vienna became the target of a terrorist attack leaving at least 2 people dead and 15 others wounded. Let’s hope that today’s outcome of the US elections will as a minimum not add the list of challenges the world is confronted with. We don’t need the most powerful nation in the world in turmoil on top of everything else. In the midst of all of this William celebrated his second birthday. Our grandson brings a smile on our face and hope in our hearts as we live in difficult and dangerous times – Kortrijk, Belgium.