Wallonia will prohibit from tomorrow / Wednesday and until March 31 visits to the 602 rest homes in the south of the country and the exits of their residents, “except for exceptional cases”, in order to protect the elderly from coronavirus, a announced Tuesday evening the regional Minister of Health, Christie Morreale (PS), after a meeting with the five Walloon provincial governors.
“The circular – which also concerns reception centers for the disabled, note – will be sent tomorrow / Wednesday morning. We don’t want the virus to enter nursing homes”, clarified the minister while the Brussels Region took a similar measure in the evening.
In parallel, “We will ask the teams in place in these establishments to show the greatest humanity and to do everything possible so that people can continue to communicate with their loved ones by telephone, skype or even by organized video-conferences”, added Christie Morreale.
“We must take precautions but not be overactive”, for his part underlined the regional minister-president Elio Di Rupo (PS). “We will work with discernment and try, in collaboration with the governors who have a power of injunction, to implement the measures taken this Tuesday noon as best as possible”, whose recommendation to ban all gatherings of more than 1,000 people in closed places, he continued. A model order for the five Walloon provinces will thus be defined in the coming days.
A public awareness campaign is also being finalized.
“Our goal is to delay the spread of the virus as much as possible. We know there will be a peak but we want this peak to be as low as possible”, concluded Elio Di Rupo.
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