Posted on Tuesday, May 26, 2020 at 8:22 a.m.
Attack and defense this Monday between Veerle Heeren, mayor of Sint-Truiden, and Marc Van Ranst, virologist and member of the GEES. The cause was a misidentification of a “new source of contamination”.
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This weekend, the figures provided by Sciensano highlighted a town. Or at least, the experts interpreted these figures in such a way as to describe Sint-Truiden as the “new hotbed of contaminations” for Covid-19 in Belgium. An erroneous assessment which was corrected this Monday during the press point of the Crisis Center.
“This impression of an increase in a few days in the number of cases compared to the rest of the region and the country, is linked to the fact that the results of PCR tests (virus detection) and serology tests (detection of antibodies) were accidentally included in the same tables ”, insisted on rectifying Yves Van Laethem, inter-federal spokesperson.
But the damage was done. The bourgmestre, Veerle Heeren (CD&V) did not fail to stress his dissatisfaction during the virtual municipal council on Monday after this attack “for nothing”. She has it against one person in particular: Marc Van Ranst. “This is a terrible statement by Marc Van Ranst that has caused enormous damage to our city.”
The now famous Flemish virologist, and member of GEES (the federal experts in charge of deconfinement), defended himself. “This is a data error by Sciensano which published bad figures. I noticed it and asked for the numbers to be verified, “he wrote on Twitter. Not sure Veerle Heeren will be happy with these excuses…
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