Europe: In Belgium, the number of people affected by the COVID-19 infection and the number of hospital admissions continues to increase, after weeks of both figures decreasing.
Between 4 and 10 June, 1,878 new daily COVID-19 infections were identified. There is a 19 percent increase from the previous seven days, as per the figures published by the Sciensano Institute of Public Health on Tuesday.
The average number of tests taken per day remained essentially the same since in the previous week, but the but the positivity rate has increased to 19.4 percent, meaning almost one in five tests has a positive result.
Moreover, the highly transmissible Omicron variant, Omicron BA.2, accounts for just 59.2 percent of all cases, as Omicron BA.5 is rapidly gaining ground.
In the same week, an average of 5.9 patients suffering from COVID-19 died on a daily basis, a decrease of 5 percent from the previous week. The total number of deaths in Belgium since the start of the pandemic amounts to 31,835.
This figure includes individuals who died of another cause of death but who happened to be infected, meaning there may be an overestimate of COVID-19 deaths that were caused by the virus.
Along with this, between 7 and 18, an average of 60.7 patients suffering from COVID-19 were admitted to hospitals on every day, an increase of 15 percent from the last seven days.
The figure reflects how many individuals are hospitalized directly of the virus, not those who are admitted with another condition and then also test positive for the COVID-19 infection.
On Monday, 889 individuals were in the hospitals in Belgium because of an infection, similar to the figure recorded in the previous Friday. At the same time, the number of people being treated in intensive care continues to decrease slowly and now sits at 62.
Furthermore, this number covers all patients who have been tested positive for COVID-19, including those who were first admitted with a different condition.
