Rapid establishment of a national surveillance of COVID-19 hospitalizations in Belgium

Abstract Background In response to the COVID-19 epidemic, caused by a novel coronavirus, it was of great importance to rapidly collect as much accurate information as possible in order to characterize the public health threat and support the health authorities in its management. Hospital-based surveillance is paramount to monitor the severity of a disease in the population. Methods Two separate surveillance systems, a Surge Capacity survey and a Clinical survey, were set up to collect complementary data on COVID-19 from Belgium’s hospitals. The Surge Capacity survey collects aggregated data to... Mehr ...