The emergency brake that the various governments are installing to prevent the spread of dangerous variants is a very good thing for Sciensano virologist Steven Van Gucht. “That is a very important procedure,” said Van Gucht in VTM NIEUWS. “Testing does help, but that is absolutely no guarantee. We saw that with Indian students a few weeks ago. That’s why quarantining is the only good remedy, whether you’re vaccinated or not.”
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This emergency brake applies in concrete terms to residents of our country who return from a high-risk area due to the presence of more contagious or more dangerous variants of the coronavirus. Anyone who has been in such an area in the past two weeks is required to quarantine for ten days, including people who have been fully vaccinated or who have passed a negative test.
The aim of this measure is to stop the spread of those variants. “In regions where variants are doing the rounds that can break immunity, you have to be able to act very quickly,” said Van Gucht. “Quarantine is then the only good means. This includes the Indian and Brazilian variants.”
As for the Indian variant, the experts are closely monitoring the situation in the United Kingdom. “The number of infections there is rising again, by 30 to 40 percent on a weekly basis,” said Van Gucht. “The number of hospital admissions and deaths remains low. I would be very careful traveling there.”
Van Gucht said he did not expect any major new waves. “Maybe we’ll reach a bottom and then see a rise again. The decline is even slightly faster than hoped, but it is not guaranteed that it will stay that way. This can increase, especially among young people. They are not yet protected.”
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