“We are not in a second wave, it must be clarified. We are in an increase in the number of people detected positive. We must be careful when looking at the diagrams and the figures because we are not testing the same thing. When we were at the peak of the epidemic in March-April, we had about 2000-2500 positive cases per day. Today, we are at 500, but they are not the same people, “said Frédérique Jacobs, comparing the situation in Belgium at the start of the epidemic, and the current situation.
According to her, it is the increase in testing that justifies the increase in coronavirus cases that our country is currently experiencing: “The first time in March-April, we only tested infected people with symptoms severe enough to be hospitalized . We did not detect the others, the less severely ill, not contacts and asymptomatic. Now we detect people who have symptoms, even extremely weak. We detect contacts of positive people and those who leave or return from a red or even orange zone. It’s not the same way of testing people. “
Contrary to other experts, and to what has been regularly announced for a few weeks, Frédérique Jacobs therefore maintains that Belgium is currently facing “an increase in the number of cases” and not a second wave, but she specifies that “if we do nothing, it will go towards a second wave”. “It is time to break this movement,” concluded the one who currently replaces Yves Van Laethem in the crisis center team.
Steven Van Gucht, the other interfederal spokesperson, said the opposite yesterday in several media.
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