Abstract
Soon after SARS-CoV-2 emerged in late 2019, Belgium was confronted with a first COVID-19 wave in March-April 2020. SARS-CoV-2 circulation declined in the summer months (late May to early July 2020). Following a successfully trumped late July-August peak, COVID-19 incidence fell slightly, to then enter two successive phases of rapid incline: in the first half of September, and then again in October 2020. The first of these coincided with the peak period of returning summer travelers; the second one coincided with the start of higher education's academic year. The largest observed COVID-19 incidence occurred in the period 16-31 October, particularly in the Walloon Region, the southern, French-speaking part of Belgium. We examine the potential association of the higher education population with spatio-temporal spread of COVID-19, using Bayesian spatial Poisson models for confirmed test cases, accounting for socio-demographic heterogeneity in the population. We find a significant association between the number of COVID-19 cases in the age groups 18-29 years and 30-39 years and the size of the higher education student population at the municipality level. These results can be useful towards COVID-19 mitigation strategies, particularly in areas where virus transmission from higher education students into the broader community could exacerbate morbidity and mortality of COVID-19 among populations with prevalent underlying conditions associated with more severe outcomes following infection.
Highlights
IntroductionOne year after its start, the ongoing transmission of SARS-CoV-2 still poses a global threat
One year after its start, the ongoing transmission of SARS-CoV-2 still poses a global threat. It was first reported in an outbreak in Wuhan, China [1] and shortly thereafter the resulting corona virus disease (COVID-19) hit the World and was declared a pandemic by the World Health Organization (WHO) [2]
We evaluated the effect of higher education students on the age-specific COVID-19 incidence, as well as differences according to gender, socioeconomic status, and population density
Summary
One year after its start, the ongoing transmission of SARS-CoV-2 still poses a global threat. It was first reported in an outbreak in Wuhan, China [1] and shortly thereafter the resulting corona virus disease (COVID-19) hit the World and was declared a pandemic by the World Health Organization (WHO) [2]. The first wave in Belgium started in March 2020 and decreased importantly towards the summer (late May to early July 2020) [3], and hit hard the elderly population [4]. In August 2020, the number of daily cases increased again, from a 14-day incidence of 11 per 100,000 on July 5, to 71 on August 9.
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