Number of COVID-19 patients on intensive care wards falls to 643
The latest figures on the coronavirus pandemic released by the public health science institute Sciensano show a continuation of the positive trend set over the past couple of weeks. The number of hospitalisations and deaths of people with COVID-19 continue to fall as does the number of people testing positive for the virus.
During the week from 8 to 14 May an average of 145 patients with COVID-19 were hospitalised. This is down 13% on the average for the previous week. On Friday 14 May the country’s hospitals reported 102 hospitalisations of patients with COVID-19. 91 patients were discharged. The relatively low figures can be probably be explained by the long weekend.
There are currently 1,918 COVID-19 patients being cared for in the country’s hospitals, a fall of 17% on a week ago. Of these 643 (-12%) are on intensive care wards and 401 (-11%) are on ventilators.
During the week from 5 to 11 May an average of 31 people with COVID-19 died in Belgium every day. This is 19.4% down on the previous week. Since the onset of the pandemic 24,664 people with COVID-19 have died in Belgium.
The number of people testing positive for coronavirus is also down. During the week from 5 to 11 May an average of 2,751 people tested positive for coronavirus each day. This is down 7% on the average for the previous week.
During the week from 5 to 11 May an average of 51,800 people were tested for coronavirus each day. This is 7% up on the previous week. Of those tested 6.1% tested positive, a fall of 0.8 percentage points on the previous week. Although an improvement this is still over the 5% positivity rate threshold above which the WHO considers an epidemic to be “giving cause for concern”.
The basic reproductive rate (R0) for coronavirus in Belgium currently stands at 0.89. This means that every 100 people with the virus infect a further 89 others.
On Thursday 13 May 3,809,834 people in Belgium had been given their first shot of coronavirus vaccine. This is 41.5% of the adult population. 1,196,803 people are fully immunised. This is 13% of all the country’s adults.