Coronavirus: Why is Belgium a hotspot for COVID19 deaths in Europe? Sky's skynewsmichelle reports 👇
Sint-Truiden is in Limburg - the worst affected of Flanders' five provinces - where hospitals, care homes and families have been feeling the pressure of tackling the virus.
Dr Raf De Keersmaecker, chairman of the Limburg Province Association of GPs, knows of many colleagues who have caught COVID, some ending up in hospital. We meet him outside a surgery where patients not showing virus symptoms are taken to one building and those who are taken to another.He has a firm theory on why Belgium's death rate is so high compared to other countries - greater transparency.And that includes deaths suspected to be from COVID but not actually tested. More of those deaths are in care homes."Of course, that the higher level of dead people in our country.
"In most countries they don't do that. They only take deaths from the hospitals. We even have people dying at home."make it hard to compare statistics between nations and could mean Belgium's figure is more realistic or even lower than data now suggests.Health ministry spokesman Emmanuel Andre recognises Belgium's way of recording deaths pushes the country to the top of the rankings but is unapologetic.
"And if we know this then we can better act on controlling this outbreak at the source of infection."The aim in Belgium now is to test everyone with COVID symptoms whether in hospital, care homes and the wider community.But until other countries do the same comparisons between nations may be meaningless.
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