午夜剧场

I still remember it well; that day came suddenly. An announcement was made through my workplace and the embassy stating, "A lockdown will be implemented starting at midnight the day after tomorrow (March 14)." Although there was an atmosphere suggesting that the situation in Italy and Spain was different from China, there were only 85 new coronavirus cases in Belgium on March 12. It was not a situation where one felt a great sense of crisis, but once it began, the situation worsened day by day, and before we knew it, Belgium recorded the highest mortality rate in the world. Although the medical system did not ultimately collapse, in response 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 my children's school and the resumption of research activities, we traveled back to Belgium, where we remain today.

Local rules regarding the coronavirus are strict; using laboratories, experimental rooms, or even one's own desk requires prior registration via the web. This is because the maximum number of users for each room is limited to approximately half capacity. Furthermore, registration has the benefit of making it easier to identify close contacts. Personal information must also be registered when using restaurants or public facilities. Clinical research at university hospitals is gradually resuming, but it is strictly limited to minimize risk. Many of our clinical studies involve esophageal catheters, and to prove the safety of clinical trials, we are verifying the impact of esophageal catheter insertion on droplet generation. While Belgium suffered a very large sacrifice, it is controlling the virus through strict rules and gradual easing to suppress the spread.

In Europe, the coronavirus remains a serious problem, and we are currently facing a major second wave. Attention is focused on how much the changed society can suppress 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 a physician in the e-book "Corona Pandemic: A Report from a Young Physician 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 in this region, as well as the comparison with Japan, will serve as a reference for many people.