Belgium’s PM advices people to work from home and cancel any non-urgent meetings
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Belgian Prime Minister Sophie Wilmès said Tuesday that all events involving more than 1,000 people will be canceled as part of measures aimed at slowing the spread of coronavirus.
Schools may stay open but the government recommended that school trips abroad be postponed. Wilmès also advised people to work from home if possible and cancel any non-urgent meetings.
The Belgian Health Minister Maggie De Block said the new measures were necessary because Belgium has now entered a phase of “secondary contaminations,” meaning new cases are no longer just found among those who have returned from hard-hit countries like Italy.
Belgium’s first confirmed Covid-19 case has been the only patient to have recovered from the virus. The patient was a Flemish man who was repatriated from Wuhan and who tested positive in early February but was asymptomatic.
On Tuesday, Interim Prime Minister Sophie Wilmès emerged from an hours-long meeting with representatives of Belgium’s regional governments, attempting to quench public concern with a new set of “complementary” but non-compulsory “social-distancing” measures, essentially in the form of advice to schools and companies.
“We do not want to add more anxiety to the anxiety,” Wilmès told reporters at a press briefing. “We are on an enhanced ‘Phase 2,’ whose objective is to limit the spread of the virus.”
“Why now? Because it wasn’t necessary before,” she added, explaining that the complementary measures were rolled out now in order to curb the rise of infections that took place within the country, in which travelling abroad was not a factor.
Wilmès said that organisers of indoor events gathering more than 1,000 people would do well to postpone the event, a recommendation which does not apply to outdoor gatherings. Wilmès said that it will be up to mayors to decide whether to forcefully cancel such events.
Even after confirmed coronavirus cases have popped up among pupils and teachers across Belgium, leaders on Tuesday ruled school closures for the time being, but advised school trips abroad and celebratory events on school grounds to be postponed.
Companies were encouraged to allow employees to work from home in an effort to limit the number of commuters in the country’s public transport systems as well as to “slow down,” the spread of the virus.
