page_title: COVID-19 pandemic in Europe
section_title: Belgium
hierarchical_section_title: COVID-19 pandemic in Europe / Pandemic by country and territory / Belgium
caption_attribution_description: English: Spread of COVID19 in Belgium
context_page_description: As of 13 March 2020, when the number of new cases became greater than those in China, the World Health Organization began to consider Europe the active centre of the COVID-19 pandemic. Cases by country across Europe had doubled over periods of typically 3 to 4 days, with some countries showing doubling every 2 days.
  As of 17 March, all countries within Europe had a confirmed case of COVID-19, with Montenegro being the last European country to report at least one case. At least one death has been reported in all European countries, apart from the Vatican City.
  As of 18 March, more than 250 million people were in lockdown in Europe.
  As of 24 May, 68 days since its first recorded case, Montenegro became the first COVID-19-free country in Europe, but this situation lasted only 44 days before a newly imported case was identified there.
context_section_description: The COVID-19 pandemic in Belgium forms part of the ongoing worldwide pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The virus was confirmed to have spread to Belgium on 4 February 2020, when a Belgian national out of a group of nine Belgians repatriated from Wuhan to Brussels was reported to have tested positive for the coronavirus. Transmission within Belgium was then confirmed in early March; authorities linked this to holidaymakers returning from Northern Italy at the end of the half-term holidays. The epidemic increased rapidly in March–April 2020. By the end of March all 10 provinces of the country had registered cases.
  As of 25 June, the Belgian authorities had reported 61,007 confirmed cases, with a total of 9,726 deaths and at least 17,688 discharged patients. The actual number of infections, however, is likely to be much higher than the number of diagnosed cases, as laboratory tests are limited to specific people and/or people with severe symptoms, and because many people with mild or no symptoms do not seek medical help, even as they are likely to be transmitting the virus.
  
  Belgium was among the world's worst-affected countries in terms of the number of deaths per head of population (excluding microstates). For example, on 1 June 2020, it was reported that there had been 819 deaths per one million head of population, compared to 442 in France, 580 in Spain, 592 in the United Kingdom, and seven in Japan. However, Belgium may have been over-reporting the actual number of cases. Unlike many other countries, which publish figures based primarily on confirmed hospital deaths, the death figures reported by the Belgian authorities include deaths in the community, especially in care homes, confirmed to have been caused by the coronavirus, as well as a much larger number of such deaths suspected to have been caused by the virus, even if the person was not tested. Such differences in methods of counting complicate any attempt to compare death rates in different countries.
caption: Map of Belgium and its provinces with the spread of COVID-19 as of 9 July 2020[85]
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