Divided Belgium turns into Europe's worst virus hot spot

BUIZINGEN, Belgium (AP) — Small, yet so divided, Belgium has been hit hard again by the pandemic, and now presents some of the most worrying statistics in a continent reeling under a coronavirus resurgence.

If ever there was a common enemy for the rival Dutch- and French-speaking citizens and regions to fight, this would surely be it. But even now cooperation goes against the grain in Belgium, to the extent that the country's Roman Catholics bishops issued a call for all, in the name of the Lord, to show some unity.

“We can win the battle against the coronavirus only if we do it together," the bishops said in a joint letter ahead of Sunday's All Saints Day, highlighting the different rules imposed by the country's national and three regional governments, who are responsible for an area 300 kilometers (185 miles) at its widest reach.

This week, news struck that the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control had recorded Belgium — shoehorned in between Germany, France and the Netherlands — as having the highest 14-day cumulative number of COVID-19 cases per 100,000 citizens, just surpassing the Czech Republic.

At 1,390.9 per 100,000 people, it far outstrips even hotbeds like France or Spain. Nearly 11,000 people have died so far, and experts say all such confirmed numbers undercount the true toll of the pandemic.

All this in a wealthy nation of 11.5 million people where no fewer than nine ministers — national and regional — have a say on health issues. The dictum “less is more" never reached the Belgian high echelons of power.

“A great many politicians can claim power but, in the end, no one is ever responsible,” historian and former member of the European Parliament Luckas Vander Taelen said. He called Belgium's system of multiple layers of government to serve the 6.5 million Dutch-speaking...