Coronavirus: Belgian city investigates girl's death

By Agnes Szucs

BRUSSELS (AA) – The Belgian city of Ghent is investigating the recent death of a girl from coronavirus, its Mayor Mathias De Clercq announced on Wednesday.

The administration is probing the way emergency services handled the assistance call, as the 12-year-old was taken to hospital by a neighbor apparently due to a misunderstanding.

The emergency center did not send an ambulance since the dispatcher was unable to tell if the family was calling for medical or police assistance, according to Sarah Frederickx, spokesperson for the federal police.

Ultimately, a police patrol was sent, but they found only one family member in the house because a neighbor had already taken the patient to a medical facility.

She had suffered from fever for three days before being taken to the clinic, where she was diagnosed with COVID-19.

The patient died on Monday.

-Total cases

In Belgium, at least 1,011 people have so far lost their lives from the pandemic.

Some 93% of them were older than 65 years, and 40% over 80.

In the last 24 hours, 1,348 new cases were diagnosed and 183 people passed away, both up from the previous day, according to the latest Federal Public Service of Health figures.

In total, 15,348 patients have been diagnosed with the virus since the outbreak, and 5,376 patients have recovered.

Meanwhile, more than 952,000 cases of COVID-19 have been confirmed worldwide, with nearly 50,000 deaths and more than 202,000 recoveries, according to the U.S.-based Johns Hopkins University's Coronavirus Resource Center.

-Restrictions

The federal government in the European country imposed a lockdown on public life two weeks ago.

The measures only allow people to leave their homes for buying food and medicine, visiting a doctor, helping someone in need or going to work if home office is not an option for them.

Just supermarkets and pharmacies are open, while snack bars and restaurants can only offer food for takeaway.