Europe: The situation in Belgium related to the COVID-19 infection continues to improve, as an average of 1,706 new daily infections were identified between 9 and 15 August, which has been decreased 32 percent from the last seven days, as well as the lowest rate since the beginning of June month.
The average number of tests has been taken on a per-day basis has been decreased to 7,900, around 3,000 fewer than on Friday the previous week, while the positivity rate has been dropped by 25.4 percent, which means it is slightly over one in four tests have a positive result, as per the figures published by the Sciensano Institute of Public Health on Friday morning.
The variant of COVID-19 Omicron BA.5 remains the dominant strain, accounting for 94.3 percent of all infections.
On the other hand, an average of 9.7 COVID-19 infected people died every day over the previous seven days (the same as last week), while the total number of deaths since the starting of the pandemic is 32,436. According to the data, some people died of another cause but who were infected, which means there is an overestimate of COVID-19 deaths.
Currently, the situation in the hospitals since the last seven days, there are an average of 87 patients suffering from COVID-19 hospitalised per day, there is a 12 percent decrease from the previous seven days. This only includes the number of people that are admitted to health care centres because of the virus.
On Thursday, a total of 1,183 people were in Belgian hospitals due to an infection, around 170 fewer than on Friday last week. At the same time, the number of individuals being treated in intensive care decreased to 88. This number includes patients admitted with a different condition who later tested positive.
Furthermore, over 7.18 million people have received a booster dose of the vaccine, representing 76% of over-18s and 62% of the entire population. From September onwards, an additional booster will be available to a larger population group.
