UK coronavirus variant infects more than 100 at Belgium retirement home

The UK variant of
coronavirus infected more than 100 people at a Belgian retirement home, its director told AFP on Sunday.

Three residents died after the virus began spreading at the De Groene Verte home in Houthulst, northwestern Belgium, Jurgen Duyck said.

According to Duyck, a total of 111 people have been confirmed virus positive in De Groene Verte home of Houthulst, including 39 staff members which amounts to two-thirds of the home’s residents.

The source of the contamination, however, remains unknown and ‘indirect’ as none of those infected in the home have travelled to Britain lately.

The new variant of the virus, which is believed to be more contagious than the original strains of the novel coronavirus, was also detected in eight residents and an unknown number of staff at a home
for people with disabilities in the same area, the Belga news agency reported.

Belgium has suffered one of the worst per capita death rates in the world during the pandemic with its nursing homes representing more than half of overall deaths from the disease, according to the Public Health Institute.  

As far as immunisation is concerned, residents of the Belgium retirement home were set to be inoculated against COVID-19 this week, but the programme got postponed due to the large number of COVID cases, said Mayor Joris Hindryckx.

The elderly are
the priority target of the vaccination drive, which according to official
figures had reached 17.26% of retirement home residents and staff by
January 13 with the first dose of the vaccine, which is to be followed up by a
second dose.

Meanwhile, stricter restrictive measures have been introduced with quarantine period for those infected advanced to 10 days from the usual seven.

So far, Belgium has recorded 677,209 cases and 20,396 deaths. The country’s mortality rate exceeded by 16.6% from last year mainly due to COVID-19 casualties.