Morts Brussels on the Covid safe ticket: ‘We are being punished for a crime we did not commit’

Will unvaccinated Brussels residents go get vaccinated en masse, now that they know they will no longer be allowed to enter a cafe or gym without a Corona permit? Enthusiasm seems rather insignificant. The most overheard response? Then no more futsal.

Join us on the right for the PCR test, on the left for the vaccine. But on the left are columns with red and white strings. “We don’t give vaccinations on Sundays,” says the Securitas guard at the entrance to the Pacheco Testing and Immunization Village in the heart of Brussels. “To find out where the vaccination bus is today, you have to go to the site.”

Most of the people queuing for Pacheco have already been vaccinated, but they say they come from a red zone.

For those who, as residents of Brussels, do not want to lose a day after the new measures were announced, it is an enigma and a search for a car-free Sunday. According to Coronavirus, Brussels, there should be a vaccination bus on Gray Street in Ixelles. A good plan, it seems at first glance, given that the sun and the markets on Flagey and Jourdan squares connected by Graystraat are very busy. But alas: no vaccination bus was found.

“Something went wrong,” says Inge Nevin, head of the Brussels Health Inspectorate. “Eventually we took the bus to Ixelles to Saint-Gilles. There are five buses in the city, there are small vaccination centers at some stations and I still hope we can get to as many people as possible.”

Good examples in Europe

From October 1, the Covid Safe Ticket (CST) in Brussels will be gradually ordered for all persons over 16 years of age at events of 50 visitors indoors and 200 outdoors, as well as in hotels, cafes, restaurants, discotheques, sports and fitness clubs.

In Paris, the introduction accelerated the vaccination campaign. The entire corridor was created there. Even President Emmanuel Macron is considering withdrawing the commitment next week. Along with Portugal, France is one of the EU countries that has already been introduced and the intended effect appears to have been achieved. “When the health cards were introduced, I saw a huge increase in vaccination coverage there,” Edward Matthew of Our World in Data, an organization that collects all data on vaccines around the world, told the newspaper. general newspaper. “Those countries were in the EU average up until that point, but then rose above it.”

The Netherlands will make CST mandatory for cinema, theatre, museums and restaurants from September 25, according to GGD Ghor, which translated to a doubling of the number of prick appointments last week.

Don’t go to the toilet

At the moment, there are little indications of this in Brussels, and questions arise mainly about enforcement among cafe owners. “I’ll put a staff member with a scanner at the entrance,” says Simon Duhamel, owner of Café Au Bassin in Vismarkt. “After the months-long shutdown, we are being punished again for a crime we did not commit.”

Anyone wishing to order something unprotected in a café in Brussels after October 1 can only hope for a free seat on the balcony. “And if a client wants to go to the toilet, we have to stop them,” Duhamel says. Policy makers also seem to ignore the fact that half of the café-goers in Brussels are not Belgian. I know a Canadian who traveled the world for that concert, last week, from the Ancienne Belgique Concert Hall, where a permit has been mandatory for some time. He was not allowed in because his Canadian QR code is not known here.

“Then there is the staff. With us, everyone has been vaccinated or cured of corona, but since the vaccine is not mandatory, as a penis owner, you can at most require your employees to get tested, at the expense of the employer. If you follow this rule, you will be up to 400 euros per month to each employee “.

There is no scale for bullying

There are also grumbles in other places. A person in charge of a sports hall in Brussels said he feared that some small five-a-side football competitions would be partially halted. “I made it clear to some club officials that we would really require this pass from October,” it seems, “and that you could no longer enter the hall without this pass. The most common response was: No more futsal.”

Nevin emphasizes that the Aura Pass is not a bullying procedure. We want to get to a situation where we can keep cafes and restaurants open. What we don’t particularly want is a new closure. We are lagging behind in Brussels compared to the rest of the country, but we are expanding. With a combination of actions, we are now primarily targeting hard-to-reach areas. We are also vaccinating more and more in schools starting this week. The goal is still as we mentioned earlier: 16,000 rounds per week.”

Experts predict that, as in other big cities, it is the older teens who eventually rush to vaccination centers against previous intentions. Contrary to what we have, the card is mandatory in the Netherlands from the age of 13. “Teenagers find one thing very important: belonging,” Dutch psychiatrist Mach-Tin Doschat told the newspaper. devotion. “If you’re the only one who can’t go to the sports canteen, that’s bad. And teens really don’t plan that far away to take a test before going to the movies.”