Confirmed cases of COVID-19 top 20,000 in Belgium

People walk past benches tied with the barricade tape by the police at a park in Brussels, Belgium, March 25, 2020. (Xinhua/Zheng Huansong)

Belgium has recorded 1,123 new cases of COVID-19 contamination, including 185 new deaths in the last 24 hours.

BRUSSELS, April 6 (Xinhua) -- The number of confirmed COVID-19 cases in Belgium has risen from 19,691 to 20,814 by Monday morning with 1,632 deaths, according to the latest figures from Belgian health authorities.

Belgium has recorded 1,123 new cases of COVID-19 contamination, including 185 new deaths in the last 24 hours, said the public health institute Sciensano, which is in charge of monitoring and analyzing COVID-19 data collected from its network of partners, on Monday.

In addition, in the last 24 hours, 420 patients of COVID-19 have been hospitalized while 235 people have left the hospital.

An emergency medical staff member leads a man to an ambulance in Brussels, Belgium, on April 2, 2020.(Xinhua/Zhang Cheng)

According to Sciensano, the number of occupied hospital beds has increased by 105 over the last 24 hours, while the number of occupied beds in intensive care units (ICUs) has decreased by 4.

This decrease in ICU beds is very significant in the sense of an improvement of the crisis, in the opinion of the experts, who said the situation seems to be stabilizing.

Between March 15 and April 5, 8,693 patients with COVID-19 entered the hospital, while 3,986 were discharged.

In a video addressed to the Belgians and published on Sunday evening, Prime Minister Sophie Wilmes underlined the first encouraging signs of the effects of the containment, but said the return to normality will come gradually.

She indicated that this transition will not be easy. "We cannot reopen everything at once."■