the times | Tuesday October 20 2020 2GM 13
News
Belgians told to prepare
for a ‘pandemic tsunami’
Bruno Waterfield Brussels
Belgium is close to a pandemic “tsu-
nami” as the government fears losing
control over the spread of the virus in
regions, including Brussels.
The infection rate in Belgium’s capi-
tal and Wallonia, the poorer region in
the south, is more than 1,000 cases per
100,000 people, the highest in Europe.
In Brussels more than one in five tests
for the virus is positive. The average
number of new infections in Belgium
has risen 79 per cent over the past week
to almost 8,000 cases a day, including
two days last week with more than
10,000 confirmed cases.
“We are close to a tsunami when we
no longer control what is happening,”
Frank Vandenbroucke, the health min-
ister, said last night.
Hospitals are coming under pressure
with 2,485 people on wards, up 80 per
cent compared with last week, leading
to cancellations of surgery and cancer
treatment. “If infections keep increas-
ing, the number of hospitalisations will
be so high that non-Covid care will be
postponed more and more,” Mr Van-
denbroucke said.A new circuit-breaker lockdown has
come into force with the closure of all
bars, restaurants and cafés for one
month combined with a national cur-
few between midnight and 5am.
“If we had not taken additional meas-
ures, it was expected we would have
reached the maximum capacity for
intensive care by mid-November,” said
Steven Van Gucht, the virologist head-
ing Belgium’s disease control centre.
“The measures taken were therefore
very important and will serve to reverse
the trend in the next two to three
weeks.”
He added: “Every close contact we
avoid, every friend or colleague we keep
away from, can in time make a drastic
difference in the number of infections,
and will also make a difference for our
hospitals.”
“The situation is serious. It is worse
than on March 18 when the lockdown
was decided,” the prime minister
Alexander De Croo said on television.
Marc Van Muylders, vice-president
of the Brussels catering industry orga-
nisation Horeca, said the measures
were unfair and could backfire as
people had parties at home.Stockholm and other areas of Sweden
are facing voluntary local lockdowns as
the authorities draw up “strong recom-
mendations” against using public
transport or going to bars, restaurants
and non-essential shops.
Swedes in coronavirus hotspots such
as Uppsala, Orebro and Jamtland could
also be advised to avoid travelling out-
side their region, physical contact with
anyone from other households and
visits to people in risk groups, including
the elderly. While compliance with the
rules will be voluntary and there are no
plans to punish violations with fines or
prison sentences, they are likely to have
a noticeable impact on daily life in the
affected areas.
The guidance marks a shift in stra-
tegy from a country that had previously
been regarded as a standard-bearer for
a more “light-touch” approach to the
pandemic.
Since the start of September the
number of new cases detected each day
has risen from an average of 160 to
nearly 700. In Jamtland, a thinly
populated region of central Sweden,
there were 95 new diagnoses for every
100,000 inhabitants last week.
The country’s national infection rate,
at 45.9 per 100,000 people over the past
seven days for which figures have been
made public, remains low by European
standards and roughly comparable to
Germany’s.
Yet officials have been alarmed by
the scale of the outbreaks in some
districts and the emergence of what
appears to be a novel, possibly more
contagious form of the virus across the
border in Norway. Several hundred
people have been quarantined in the
Norwegian city of Trondheim after 35
people became infected with a
previously unknown mutation of the
coronavirus.
Anders Tegnell, Sweden’s state epi-
demiologist, had previously suggestedNews
Sweden hopes local
voluntary lockdowns
will slow the spread
Oliver Moody that the national guidelines could be
relaxed in time for Christmas but is now
touring the country to advise local
authorities on whether they need to
introduce more stringent measures.
He has called on Swedes to refrain
from socialising after work. He is also
worried that the infection rate in
nursing homes has doubled over the
past week.
“In the first instance we always begin
by trying to help people to better
understand the restrictions we already
have in place,” Dr Tegnell, 64, told SVT,
the public broadcaster. “If they don’t
seem to have an effect... then of course
we need to consider other ways to
constrain these opportunities for trans-
mission.”
The district around Uppsala, a uni-
versity city about 35 miles north of
Stockholm, may be the first to adopt the
new measures after outbreaks linked to
students, coffee shops and private par-
ties. Last week it had 75 new infections
for every 100,000 residents, the third
highest in the country.
The plan remains unclear but a list of
possible warnings published last week
by Sweden’s Public Health Agency
includes recommendations to avoid all
shops except pharmacies and super-
markets. There is, however, no sign that
Swedes will be urged to wear masks.
During the first wave of the pan-
demic Sweden was the only sizeable
European state other than Belarus that
did not order some form of mandatory
lockdown, reasoning that in the long
term it would be more sustainable to
encourage the public to follow official
advice.
The country has recorded 5,918 coro-
navirus deaths. In per capita terms the
toll has been ten times higher than in
Finland but lower than those in Bel-
gium, the UK, Italy and Spain. Antigen
tests suggest Stockholm and London
have had similar rates of infection, with
about a fifth of each city’s population
exposed to the disease.france
Brigitte Macron has gone into
self-isolation after coming into
contact with a person who has
tested positive for Covid-19. The
French first lady, who has shown
no symptoms, will miss
tomorrow’s national tribute to
Samuel Paty, the teacher
decapitated by an Islamist last
week.australia
Residents of Melbourne flocked
to hairdressers and golf courses
as restrictions were eased after a
fall in the infection rate. The
city’s five million people had
been largely barred from leaving
their homes for three months.
Victoria recorded four new cases
yesterday.austria
Gatherings are being limited to
six people indoors and 12 outside
as daily cases regularly surpass
the figures in March. The
conservative-led government of
Sebastian Kurz is trying to avoid
a new lockdown for fear of
further damaging the economy
and annoying voters and shops,
bars, restaurants and theatres
will remain open.poland
A Krakow gym has rebranded
itself as the “Church of the
Healthy Body” in a growing
rebellion against coronavirus
restrictions that ban fitness
businesses from opening but
allow places of worship to remain
open.india
At least half of India’s 1.3 billion
people will have been infected
with coronavirus by next
February, according to a federal
government committee tasked
with providing projections.slovenia
A 30-day state of emergency has
been declared after cases of
Covid-19 more than doubled in
the past week to 4,845. Travel
between certain regions has been
banned.Macron’s wife
puts herself
into isolation
World update
1 2 3 4 5 6
(^107) Reported new cases
52,
29,
24,
16,
15,
17
Countries with populations greater than 20 million
Source: WHO. Spain did not report cases yesterday
India 55,
US
France
Brazil
UK
Russia
China
1 2 3 4 5 6
US
Brazil
India
Mexico
UK
Italy
217,
153,
114,
86,
43,
36,
1 2 3 4 5 6
Peru
Brazil
Spain
Mexico
US
UK
723
722
667
658
644
1,
Countries reporting most deaths
Deaths per million population
Global cases
39,944,
Global deaths
1,111,
Most new cases
YARA NARDI/REUTERS
opening times of restaurants and the size of groups allowed in them will tighten
takes its eye off the ball
is the hardest thing to sort out and
Milan has had serious problems,”
Professor Galli said.
Yesterday, the region of Lombardy,
which surrounds Milan, asked the gov-
ernment permission to impose an
11pm-5am curfew from Thursday.
The south of Italy, which was spared
the first wave thanks to Italy’s lock-
down, is also now in the line of fire. In
Naples schools closed for two weeks. In
Rome, 11 Swiss Guards have tested posi-
tive at the Vatican.
After the infection of 11 MPs, voting
in parliament was suspended. A red-
eyed Federica Pellegrini, Italy’s top
Olympic swimmer, has posted videos
complaining about losing her sense of
taste and smell as she fights the virus.
Experts say that youngsters brought
the contagion back from holiday in
countries such as Spain, and spread it
within their families, where more than
70 per cent of infections now occur.
Massimo Clementi, head of micro-
biology and virology at Milan’s San Raf-
faele hospital, said he noticed the viral
load in Covid patients dropping this
summer, then bouncing back. “It was
July 17 when we saw the high loads
again in a couple who had picked it up
in eastern Europe, where Covid was out
of control, and since then it’s been rising
again,” he said.
The reopening of Italy’s schools after
September 14 has been held indirectly
responsible for accelerating the out-
break, not because children catch it at
schools where careful distancing and
mask wearing is ensured, but because
they catch it on the way home while
cramming on to buses.
According to Walter Ricciardi, an
adviser to the health minister, Italy has
failed to maintain sufficient tracing of
contacts of known positive cases. The
northern regions of Veneto and Lazio
have focused on interviewing sufferers
to find out who they have been in con-
tact with, but the national record is
spotty.
“Only about a third of cases are being
interviewed which means we are not
identifying clusters before it is too late,”
he said, “and that is why the curve is
going exponential again.”
Professor Ricciardi said that the way
to avoid a national lockdown was to
impose them locally: “And that means
locking down Milan and Naples now.”