October 23, 2020
11:22
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The corona virus is creeping into residential care centers again. The weekly average of new infections among Flemish residents has doubled. Their share of covid deaths is again very high.
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In the care sector, concerns about the situation in residential care centers are growing. The dam built around the elderly after the particularly deadly first wave is showing cracks, according to the latest figures from the federal knowledge center Sciensano and the Agency for Care and Health, which is responsible for the Flemish residential care centers.
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Duplication of infections
Also read
A guide through the statistics
The detailed figures of the coronavirus in Belgium.
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The weekly average – the week to October 21 compared to the previous one – of new infections has doubled among residents and staff. This concerns both the figures about possible and confirmed infections among residents and staff and the infections among residents individually. The rest homes reported 2,896 covid cases among staff and residents on October 21. 1,615 were residents. In 24 hours, 761 cases were added, of which 255 were confirmed by a corona test.
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The situation cannot be compared with the corona crisis in the spring. Then, at the peak in Flemish residential care centers, there were 68 possible and confirmed covid cases per 1,000 inhabitants per week. In the week to October 18, this was 7.5 per 1,000 inhabitants. That figure is increasing: the week before that was 3.5 cases per 1,000 inhabitants. In Wallonia, this ratio has increased from 7.9 to 21.8 per 1,000 inhabitants. In both regions this is about doubling.
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In Brussels, after a rapid increase, there is a stabilization (from 11.6 to 12.1 confirmed cases per 1,000). In the capital and in Wallonia, the army was deployed during the first wave to contain the crisis. The NGO Doctors without Borders also helped.
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On October 13, 11 in 1,000 residents in Flemish residential care centers were infected with the corona virus. In Wallonia this was 34 out of 1,000, in Brussels 13. Of the Flemish residential care centers, 17 percent have at least one covid case. In Wallonia this is 33 percent and 27 percent in Brussels. The majority of residential care centers are covid-free – 83 percent in Flanders – but the number of nursing homes with infections is increasing in all regions.
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In regions with many infections, we see more infections in residential care centers.
Steven Van Gucht
Virologist Sciensano
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“In regions with many infections, we see more infections in residential care centers,” says virologist Steven Van Gucht of Sciensano. The number of large outbreaks with ten or more infections rose slightly, but this concerns a minority of residential care centers: 3.4 percent in Flanders, 7.1 percent in Wallonia and 1.9 percent in Brussels.
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Nursing home residents are again well represented in the deaths, despite the measures for visits and protective equipment. Six in ten of the more than 10,000 deaths (6,467) since March are nursing home residents. Since the resurgence – recorded on June 22 – 395 nursing home residents have died from Covid-19. That is 41.4 percent of all covid deaths in Belgium.
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In Flanders, the share of residents of residential care centers in the deaths is highest (46.9 percent), for Wallonia (40.6 percent) and Brussels (31.2 percent). Between 12 and 18 October, 52 residents died in a residential care center, 16 in Flanders, 29 in Wallonia and 7 in Brussels. 33 died in hospital (14 in Flanders, 12 in Wallonia and 7 in Brussels). In the past week, more nursing home residents died in a hospital than in a residential care center. The elderly are taken to hospital for treatment more often than in the spring.
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