Belgium region faces virus ‘ tsunami’
WEARE LOSING AND OVERWHELMED, SAYS HOSPITAL STAFF IN LIEGE, DUBBED THE ‘ NEW LOMBARDY’
Shell- shocked hospital staff, some of whom have tested positive for the coronavirus, are fighting a losing battle in the Belgian city of Liege against Europe’s second wave of Covid- 19.
It is the second time that Belgium, a small EU country of 11.5 million people, has ended up as one of the hardest hit by the global pandemic. It has already seen more than 280,000 cases and 10,658 deaths. And, according to the latest data, Brussels and Wallonia, the French- speaking region of which Liege is a major city, are now the epicentres of Europe’s renewed crisis.
This repeat performance brings a quiet rage to those on the front lines in the medieval city’s overwhelmed university hospital CHU Liege.
Losing battle
Benoit Misset, head of the intensive care unit, explains the daily onslaught from the silent virus threat. “We’re losing. We’re overwhelmed. We’re bitter ... because we’ve known this was coming for two months and the decisions weren’t taken in time,” he told AFP.
“On Wednesday, we almost reached the number of cases we saw in the first wave,” says Christelle Meuris, an infection specialist and head of the unit.
“We’re afraid that the latest measures will not be enough to flatten the curve. We can see a tsunami coming,” she said.
Transmission fears
Everyone is worried that Liege — dubbed as the “New Lombary” — will become the next Bergamo, the Italian city where scenes of overcome hospitals heralded a pandemic that was about to engulf Europe.
Misset who heads an ICU strongly in favour of new lockdowns. Nobody took the situation seriously. Politicians as well as the people,” he said angrily of the summer months in which signs of the virus’ continued presence were taken too lightly.
“Now it’s trench warfare”, with the difference that “it’s not bombs, it’s a virus” and “it’s the virus calling the shots, not us, not politicians, not scientists.”