Health Minister on new lockdown “I can’t guarantee anything”
In a live interview broadcast in the Flemish commercial broadcaster VTM’s lunchtime news programme, the Federal Health Minister Frank Vandenbrouck (Flemish socialist) said that he couldn’t guarantee that there would not be a second lockdown. The number of people testing positive for coronavirus continues to rise sharply.
The number of people testing positive for coronavirus continues to rise sharply. Meanwhile, hospitals are filling up with patients that have COVID-19. Should we do more to try and curb the spread of the virus and how far should we go?
When asked by the presenter of Sunday lunchtime’s VTM News where a second lockdown is on the cards Mr Vandenbroucke said that he couldn’t guarantee that there wouldn’t be one “It’s not simple. I can’t run ahead of the facts, but what I can do, against my will, is tell you that it will be a difficult autumn. The days are becoming shorter, darker and colder. It’s different than in March when we could look forward to the spring and the summer".
The message is clear “We need to strictly uphold the new rules that have been agreed. The strict we are with ourselves, the less drastic the following steps will be. But can a second lockdown be ruled out? "I can’t rule anything out, but if we tackle this together the chance will be greatest that we will achieve what we want to achieve”, Mr Vandenbroucke concluded.