The Impact of Coronavirus

2020/12/19

I still remember it well; that day came suddenly. An announcement was made through my workplace and the embassy: "A lockdown will begin at midnight the day after tomorrow (March 14)." Although there was a feeling that the situation in Italy and Spain seemed different from China, there were only 85 new coronavirus cases in Belgium on March 12. It didn't feel like a crisis at all, but as it turned out, the situation worsened day by day, and before we knew it, Belgium had recorded the highest mortality rate in the world. Although the healthcare system did not ultimately collapse, due to the pressing situation, my family and I returned to Japan temporarily for two months starting at the end of March. Since June, following the reopening of schools and the resumption of research activities, we traveled back to Belgium and have remained here since.

Local rules regarding the coronavirus are strict; using laboratories, experimental rooms, or even one's own desk requires prior online registration. This is because the maximum number of users for each room is limited to approximately half. Furthermore, registration has the benefit of making contact tracing easier. Personal information must also be registered when using restaurants or public facilities. Clinical research at the university hospital is gradually resuming, but it is strictly limited to minimize risk. Much of our clinical research involves esophageal catheters, and to ensure the safety of clinical trials, we are verifying the impact of catheter insertion into the esophagus on droplet generation. While Belgium ended up paying a very high price, it is controlling the virus through strict rules and gradual easing.

In Europe, the coronavirus remains a serious problem, and we are currently facing a major second wave. Attention is focused on how much the transformed society can mitigate the damage of this second wave.

I have written about these social changes during the spread of the coronavirus that I experienced in both Belgium and Japan from the perspective of an internist in an e-book titled "Corona Pandemic: A Report from a Young Internist in Belgium, the Country with the World's Worst Mortality Rate (Parts 1 and 2)." I hope that the social changes and transitions in rules there, as well as the comparison with Japan, will serve as a reference for many people.