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BELGIAN POLICE USED water cannon and tear gas to disperse protesters in Brussels today after most demonstrators marched peacefully to protest against tightened Covid-19 restrictions designed to counter a surge in coronavirus infections.
Thousands of people gathered to reject the new measures announced on Friday, the third week in a row that the government has tightened its rules as an avalanche of new cases strains the country’s health services, depriving people with other life-threatening diseases of treatment.
Shouting “Freedom! Freedom!” and carrying banners that said, “United for our freedom, rights and our children”, protesters marched to the European Union headquarters. Some also carried signs critical of vaccines and against making vaccination mandatory.
The main crowd in today’s mostly peaceful march had already dispersed when about 100 protesters ran into a riot police barricade cordoning off access to the European Commission.
After a brief stand-off with police, protesters threw rubbish and other objects, including a bicycle, at police and set off firecrackers and flares.
Police used water cannons and fired tear gas to disperse the crowd. There were no immediate reports of injuries.
Prime Minister Alexander De Croo announced on Friday that day care centres and primary schools would close for the holiday a week early, and that children must wear masks from the age of six. Indoor events would only be allowed with a maximum of 200 people.
The government previously closed nightclubs, and ordered bars and restaurants to shut at 11pm for three weeks. Speculation had been rife that closing times would be brought forward to 8pm but ministers decided against it.
According to the latest coronavirus figures, the EU nation of 11 million appears to have reached a plateau.
On a weekly average, 17,862 new daily cases were reported in Belgium, a rise of 6% compared to the previous week. Hospital admissions rose 4%. More than 3,700 people are in hospital with the virus, 821 of them in intensive care. More than 27,000 people with the virus have died in Belgium since the outbreak began last year.
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Can’t trust the journal anymore with covid reporting.
@Barry Ryan: why? Are saying that this didn’t happen?
Double vaxxed here but really think governments all over are making a balls of it all
@Burt Macklin: Probably because there isn’t a blueprint for dealing with a global pandemic in the modern era.
@Lee King Buckett: very true
@Burt Macklin: Some governments have made some very serious mistakes and some have deliberately downplayed and/or politicised the pandemic, but how much of the public in each country have contributed as well?! Anyone living on this planet bought a one way ticket to a difficult and unpredictable existence that can end whenever reality/nature align in a certain way. I have no idea why so many people seem to think that the lives they feel are inconvenienced matter a micro gram to reality, or why reality will indulge them. We all have to act as responsibly as we can. I’m double Pfizer vaccinated (Springtime) and I have to act cautiously as often as possible.
@David A. Murray: yep. Same here. Don’t notice any inconvenience in my life at all.
A good wash never went to waste.
A plague is a plague no matter the century. Let’s call it what it is. No one country has the answer and no marching has it either. So who is right?
@Deirdre: Ill tell you who is wrong, the anti mask, anti lockdown anti vaccine clowns.
@Deirdre: Who is right, who do we listen too ? Elected officials operating under advice from public health authorities or anti-science anti-vaxxers ? Tough call, eh ?
Of all countries, they had to pick the one with a record amount of time without a government. Imagine waiting more than 500 days to get a good protest going. The frustration must have been something else.
A lot to be said for rubber bullets and baton charging protestors
Being anti vax is the new trendy way of saying good riddance to the government.
Should have doused them with water and barricaded out in the open air for a full night. That would soften their cough!!
have your say