![]() | This article needs to be updated.(February 2022) |
COVID-19 pandemic in Belgium | |
---|---|
Disease | COVID-19 |
Virus strain | SARS-CoV-2 |
Location | Belgium |
First outbreak | Wuhan, Hubei, China[1] |
Index case | Brussels |
Arrival date | 3 February 2020 (4 years, 6 months, 2 weeks and 1 day ago) |
Confirmed cases | 4,872,829[2][nb 1][3] |
Recovered | 4,736,144[4] |
Deaths | 34,339[2][3][nb 2] |
Fatality rate | 0.7% |
Vaccinations | 8,697,961[3] |
Government website | |
www |
The COVID-19 pandemic in Belgium has resulted in 4,872,829[2] confirmed cases of COVID-19 and 34,339[2] deaths.
The virus was confirmed to have spread to Belgium on 4 February 2020, when one of a group of nine Belgians repatriated from Wuhan to Brussels was reported to have tested positive for the coronavirus.[5][6] Transmission within Belgium was confirmed in early March; authorities linked this to holidaymakers returning from Northern Italy at the end of the half-term holidays.[7][8] The epidemic increased rapidly in March–April 2020. By the end of March all 10 provinces of the country had registered cases.[citation needed]
By March 2021, Belgium had the third highest number of COVID-19 deaths per head of population in the world, according to data compiled by Johns Hopkins University. However, Belgium may have been over-reporting the number of cases, with health officials reporting that suspected cases were being reported along with confirmed cases.[9] Unlike some countries that publish figures based primarily on confirmed hospital deaths, the death figures reported by the Belgian authorities included deaths in the community, such as in care homes, confirmed to have been caused by the virus, as well as a much larger number of such deaths suspected to have been caused by the virus, even if the person was not tested.[10]
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