Plans for intensive corona testing before people return to work

The Belgian minister Philippe De Backer wants to have people tested on corona when they will return to work, once the measures are being relaxed. In this way, he hopes to avoid that the epidemic would gain new momentum. 

After the peak has been reached and things will be improving, the government will have to relax  the corona containment measures bit by bit. Mr De Backer, who is at the helm of a corona task force, advocates massive testing in this respect. The checks should reveal whether people have developed immunity to the virus or not. 

At present, Belgium is boosting its corona test capacity, taking it from 2,000 to 10,000 each day. "This will allow us to map the epidemic  and to see which health care staff has been infected."

And there's more: "Once we have had the worst of the epidemic, we should get back to normal as soon as possible. People will want to return to work. For that purpose, we will test employees' immunity over a number of weeks. Then we can decide which people can get back to work."   

The Belgian virologist Marc Van Ranst has given the plans thumbs up. "A couple of weeks ago these new tests were not reliable enough, but now they are."  

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