Inconsistencies have been identified, but an explanation exists.
As every day, the national crisis center and the FPS public health communicated the latest data relating to the coronavirus epidemic in Belgium. During their press briefing on Wednesday April 29, the inter-federal spokespersons reported that 174 people had to be hospitalized in the past 24 hours, while 340 people were able to leave the hospital. The number of patients who were able to return home is therefore more or less double the number of Belgians admitted to the hospital. Despite everything, the total number of beds occupied in hospitals continues to increase (+ 74 this Wednesday). It is now from 4.050.
This data has something to call for. Indeed, if we count the number of patients who left the hospital (340), to which we add the sum of deaths in health care establishments (69), we obtain a number of 409 free beds this Wednesday 29 April. If we subtract the number of new admissions (174), we should indeed arrive at a decrease in the number of occupied beds amounting to 235. When in reality, there is an increase of 74 occupied beds. Some internet users therefore wondered if there was an error in the figures communicated by Sciensano and relayed by the FPS public health and the National Crisis Center. Questioned by De Morgen, the Crisis Center considered that the difference observed between the reported figure for occupied beds and that calculated above can be explained by two things.
First of all, this can result from the fact that every day, the authorities report on the situation at a specific time (in the evening) and keep the data collected at that time. After having analyzed them, they are communicated to the general public during the traditional press conference. “We provide the most recent figures there, but that does not always give a perfect sum”, detailed the Crisis Center to the Flemish daily. “Reliable and consolidated data takes time.” Their daily reports show trends rather than trends in raw data, experts say.
Finally, the second explanation is that Sciensano now uses a new definition of “occupied bed”. Since every hospital patient has recently been tested, a patient entering the hospital for a completely different reason may test positive for covid-19. The latter is now counted in beds occupied for coronavirus. However, it is not counted among new hospitalizations since its reason for being in the hospital is other than covid-19.
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