Hospitals can resume non-urgent operations
Hospitals in provinces where fewer than half of the beds on ICUs are occupied by patients with COVID-19 can resume carrying out non-urgent operations. This is the case in all five Flemish provinces, but not in the Brussels-Capital Region.
Hospitals in the Flemish Region will now switch from phase 2A to phase 1B which means that they can now start trying to clear some of the backlog of non-urgent operations that has built up in recent months. The treatments include heart bypass operations and certain types of cancer treatment.
The switch from phase 2A to 1B is conditional on fewer than half of ICU beds in a given province being occupied by COVID-19 patients. This is the case in all 5 Flemish provinces, but not in Brussels, Hainaut and Namur provinces. However, it is expected that here too the 50% threshold will have been reached in the coming days.
Once less than one quarter of ICU beds are occupied by COVID-19 patients, the hospitals will revert to phase 1A. This means that all operations will be able to proceed as planned.