Gilles Verstraeten wants better coronavirus monitoring in Brussels: “Why don’t we set up a test village like in Antwerp?”

Brussels MP Gilles Verstraeten calls for a corona test village in Brussels. “A test village appears to be hugely effective in taking the burden off GPs, hospitals and labs.” The infection rates are higher in Brussels than elsewhere in the country.

The Brussels government is suspiciously quiet in these times of corona. Gilles Verstraeten considers the situation to be very worrying, however. “The government was essentially absent throughout the summer. When the figures went back up, I requested that Parliament be informed about the situation. But the government didn’t think that necessary. The Health Committee only met again weeks later.”

How well does the Brussels monitoring system work?

The question is whether the monitoring system in Brussels is working well, says Gilles Verstraeten. “We see that the figures in Brussels are significantly higher than elsewhere in the country and virologists state that they can still grow exponentially. Does the administration have sufficient capacity to detect and isolate hotspots? Are people complying with basic measures sufficiently?” Moreover, Gilles Verstraeten is concerned about the pressure on front-line care. “We are getting signals that GPs and front-line carers are overstretched.”

Test 4,000 people daily

Brussels MP Gilles Verstraeten has a proposal. “Why don’t we open a test village in Brussels, similar to the one in Antwerp? That facility can test 4,000 people every day. It appears to be hugely effective in taking the burden off GPs, hospitals and labs there.” Gilles Verstraeten is not calling for stricter measures, “but people must above all comply with the current measures, we must test a sufficient number of people and do so quickly, and the tools to monitor and curb the virus’s spread must work and yield results. This also includes an enforcement component, which is where I think we have a problem. The last thing that Brussels residents or I want is for us to have to go into lockdown again later because of the lack of a sufficiently strict policy now.”