Almost 8,000 Covid-19 cases every day, hospitalisations rising

The recent increase in the number of new coronavirus infections is continuing at an increasing pace in Belgium, while a rise is being recorded in the number of hospitalisations.

Between 5 and 11 March, an average of 7,936 new coronavirus infections were identified every day, a 31% increase on the previous seven days, according to the figures published by the Sciensano Public Health Institute on Tuesday morning.The Omicron BA.2 variant is accounting for 62.5% of all cases, replacing the Omicron variant (37.5%), while the Delta variant has completely disappeared in the country.The average number of PCR tests taken per day in the same period inclined by 7% to 34,866. The positivity rate now sits at 24.6%, meaning almost one in four tests has a positive result.Despite this increase, experts said that there is no reason to worry yet, and even added this evolution was expected due to the lifting of the measures in February when Belgium issued a code orange , and again at the start of this week when it switched to code yellowThe average number of deaths in the same week continued to decrease but at a slower pace. An average of 19.4 Covid-19 patients died on a daily basis, down by 1% since last week. The total number of deaths in Belgium since the start of the pandemic amounts to 30,445.

The official death statistics also include people who died of another cause of death, but who happened to be infected, meaning they are an overestimate of the deaths caused by the virus.