October 19, 2020
19:29
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Anyone who has come into contact with an infected person but does not show any symptoms should no longer be tested for the corona virus. The same applies to those who return from a red zone. Those who are not tested have to be quarantined for ten days instead of seven.
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Those measures were agreed on Monday by our country’s health ministers in a video conference. The new test strategy should relieve the heavy pressure on the testing labs and ensure that there is less delay in the processing of the samples.
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In Wallonia, in more than half of the tests, the period between sampling and submission of the result is longer than 24 hours.
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With a test capacity of almost 70,000 corona tests per day, Belgium is among the top in Europe per 1,000 inhabitants, but it stops processing. In Wallonia, in more than half of the tests, the period between sampling and submission of the result is longer than 24 hours. At a quarter it is even longer than 48 hours. In Brussels, where the pressure is also great, some labs report a waiting period of three to four days.
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The Ministers of Health also decided on Monday that diagnostic tests may from now on be conducted by speech therapists, midwives and general practitioners in training, in order to boost staff capacity. New test centers are being added in several regions and additional people are being recruited to do contact tracing.
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