Flemish Minister-President Jan Jambon (N-VA) announced that the Belgian Consultative Committee will meet on Friday for the third time in less than three weeks. The Committee is set to discuss additional measures to curb the spread of the coronavirus. 

The various governments of Belgium have once again decided to implement stricter measures to halt the spread of the coronavirus. Jambon, who leads the government of Flanders, the Dutch-speaking part of Belgium, cites the increasing pressure on hospitals as the primary reason for the earlier Committee. The next Committee had earlier been planned for the fifteenth of December.

The core cabinet of the Federal Government plans to meet later on Thursday to discuss potential additional measures, according to The Brussels Times. GEMS, Belgium’s Management Strategy Expert Group, already met on Wednesday the first of December to discuss new proposals for supplementary measures. 

Dire straits
The snap meeting should come as no surprise to pundits. The number of coronavirus infections in Belgium has been surging in recent weeks, with only lukewarm signs of slowing down. The average number of confirmed daily infections has now risen to 17.696 per day, an all-time high since the beginning of the pandemic. 

The unprecedented amount of cases has forced Belgian hospitals to postpone non-urgent medical care for the coming two weeks. Urgent medical care, such as chemotherapy and dialysis, will not be cancelled. 

Text: Andrei Stiru, final editor: Renske Van Hoof
Photo: Collage by Andrei Stiru – Photo by Odin Reyna from Pexels, Paul Van Melden (CC BY-SA 4.0)