Maintaining the social bubble of 15 people surprised many virologists and epidemiologists last week at the end of the last CNS. Geert Molenberghs was one of them and he still believes that “both at national level and in the province of Antwerp, social contacts must be reduced”, as he explained to Laatste Nieuws. Large gatherings such as weddings or parties can cause a super-contamination effect, which must obviously be avoided, he explains. For him, it is therefore the “drastic reduction” of social contacts that is currently the key, to avoid national confinement. “We must be mentally ready (to be confined, editor’s note), but at the same time, do everything possible so that it does not go so far,” says the Antwerp researcher.
To avoid being re-defined as much as possible, Geert Molenberghs also relies on the common sense of Belgian travelers returning from abroad, and believes that a quarantine should be imposed on anyone returning to Belgium after their vacation. But “more importantly, avoid the crowds,” he insists, whether in the supermarket or in outdoor spaces, and also at school. “An auditorium of 600 students? Forget it”, adds the researcher, at the start of the school year “universities will have to combine distance education and on-site courses, just like in secondary education”. “If the curve remains below the peak of the first wave, we will be able to open the nurseries, kindergartens and primary schools again. If we go above, they will have to be closed,” warns Geert Molenberghs. For him, teleworking must also become the norm again, as was the case at the start of confinement.
He also hopes that young people will adhere to the new rules that will be announced at the National Security Council on Monday. For him, “too many of them are still thinking ‘There isn’t much that can happen to us'”. “But there are 25-year-olds who are seriously ill and who will stay sick with their lungs all their lives,” he recalls.
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