It’s sad because it’s so predictable. With a daily number of deaths that are now between 50 and 100, the Belgian is deprived of the last illusion that he will eventually get rid of it in this second corona wave. Unfortunately.
The second corona wave has hit Europe ugly, and again Belgium is at the unenviable top. Scenarios with emergency hospitals and airlifts abroad suddenly no longer seem crazy. Turn and turn the statistics as much as you want, Belgium is always in that one corner. The corner where the hardest blows fall.
It is quite clear what the new federal government has tried, in accordance with the sub-governments by the way. The target has been next week’s fall break for a while now. The government hoped to get the country across that line as best as possible. With the school holidays, parents who stay at home and closed relaxation options, there would be a de facto soft lockdown, with as many people as possible ‘in their room’. And then just hope that the sky clears up afterwards. It is a big gamble, the odds of which are now almost outdated.
Avoiding another lockdown has always been the goal of the incumbent governments. The intention was to keep the mental and economic damage under control this time. Slider by slider the safety locks are closed, with the aim of keeping schools and companies open and care manageable. That’s called dancing with the virus. That can work, as long as you keep leading the dance.
That moment has been behind us for some time now. The problem is that there was not really a choice. If you take the risk of keeping schools and workplaces open, then you must radically and consistently shut down everything else, no matter how terribly painful that is for everyone involved and for all of us social life. That did not happen, and you see the result on the street every day. Too much traffic, too much ‘living with the virus’, in the spirit of the dramatically frivolous Security Council of September 23 – barely a month ago.
The Brussels and French-speaking sub-governments are quite rightly criticized for intervening too late and too lightly. But it is equally frustrating that the Flemish government is squandering its lead by just as passively waiting. It is significant that now, two weeks after the French Community, she is also taking exactly the same decision about the extension of the autumn holiday. Other parties, same policy.
The federal government, for its part, gambled that she would make it to the holidays with punctual interventions. A look at the figures shows that this strategy is failing. The discussion about the desirability of a new form of lockdown is therefore gradually becoming futile. Every new day with new pitiful numbers makes a lockdown even more inevitable. Then you better look the beast in the eye immediately.
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