COVID-positive hospital staff in the Belgian city of Liege have “no choice” but to keep working as they grapple with Europe’s devastating second wave of the coronavirus.
Belgium, a small European Union (EU) country of 11.5 million people, is again one of the hardest hit by the global pandemic, seeing more than 270,000 cases and 10,500 deaths.
The country’s capital Brussels has one of the highest infection rates in the world, while the medieval city of Liege sits in one of the epicentres of Europe’s renewed crisis.
It has put staff at the city’s university hospital, CHU Liege, under strain.
"We're losing. We're overwhelmed. We're bitter... because we've known this was coming for two months and the decisions weren't taken in time," head of the hospital’s intensive care unit, Benoit Misset, told AFP in a story published last week.
Four COVID-positive staff were still working in the unit of 23 people, with Professor Misset saying there was no choice.
The has reported that 10 Liege hospitals have asked staff to keep working when they test positive but don't have symptoms.
"If I'm a nurse or doctor and I'm sick and I don't have aches and pains, if I'm not in bed, all I have to do is put on my mask. You have to work," Professor Misset said.
A medical worker tends to a patient at the intensive care unit for COVID-19 patients at The University Hospital Centre in Liege on 22 October. Source: Getty Images
Nurse Thomas, who only gave his last name, said he had worked after testing positive for the virus three weeks earlier.
“I didn’t have much choice. I didn’t have a lot of symptoms. I told my supervisor. He told me ‘we can’t replace you. You’re going to have to come in."
The 33-year-old acknowledged “a difficult decision, but patients don’t take breaks. It was also by solidarity with my team”.
“We take even more precautions.”
Head of the COVID unit, Christelle Meuris, said they were afraid the latest measures wouldn’t be enough to flatten the curve. The unit had 18 virus patients in its 26 beds when she spoke to AFP.
A medical worker puts on his personal protective equipment before work at the intensive care unit at The University Hospital Centre, in Liege, on 22 October. Source: Getty Images
“We can see a tsunami coming,” she said.
Europe case count sparks concern
A dramatic surge in COVID-19 cases in the Belgian capital - the headquarters city of the main EU institutions - has also seen the EU scale back meetings of experts and senior officials as they opt for more videoconferences.
But leaders fear some issues - in particular wrangling over the terms of the EU's trillion-euro seven-year budget framework - can only be resolved after in-person horse trading.
Europe in the past week has accounted for 46 per cent of global coronavirus cases, and nearly a third of deaths.
World Health Organisation (WHO) emergencies chief Michael Ryan told a Monday briefing there was “no question” that the European region was an epicentre for the virus.
Maria Van Kerkhove, the WHO's technical lead on the pandemic, also voiced concern about the situation in Europe - and in particular a surge in hospitalisations and rapidly filling intensive care units.
"In many cities we're seeing beds filling up too quickly, and we're seeing many projections saying the ICU beds will reach capacity in the coming days and weeks," she told the same briefing.
But Dr Van Kerkhove voiced optimism, pointing out that "countries across Europe brought transmission under control in the springtime into the summertime, with case numbers at very low levels."
"They can do this again," she said, stressing that the measures needed to halt transmission were well known.
"The other option is if we don't quarantine contacts of known cases, then everyone's going to have to be in quarantine - and that's what we want to avoid."
