confinement will last two months in a European country

Less than a week after declaring general confinement for the entire country for the coronavirus, the Belgian government announced today that this measure should be extended “at least eight more weeks” and justified it by the massive spread of the disease and the need to prepare the health system.

“We want to prevent too many people from being hospitalized at the same time. What we ask people is not easy, we have to adapt our daily habits. But there is no alternative,” Health Minister Maggie De Block explained in an interview with the local newspaper De Zondag, quoted by the EFE news agency.

On Sunday alone, the government registered 586 new cases of infected, bringing the total to 3,401. The dead have already reached 75.

The center of the pandemic is currently in Europe and, therefore, it is the countries of that continent that are taking the most drastic measures of confinement and quarantine, with the exception of some Asian nations such as China and Singapore.

Last Tuesday, the Belgian government decreed the general confinement of its population until April 5. Since then, only supermarkets, banks, service stations, pharmacies and post offices are open.

The previous Friday they had closed the country’s borders except for the transport of goods and the return of Belgians who are abroad.

In the economic sphere, the government decreed a package of measures worth between 8,000 and 10,000 million euros, focused on the moratorium on taxes on companies and the self-employed, the payment of subsidies to maintain the wages of workers who have to suspend their activity and urgent expenses for the health system.

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