On the timing of interventions to preserve hospital capacity: lessons to be learned from the Belgian SARS-CoV-2 pandemic

Using publicly available data on the number of new hospitalisations we use a newly developed phase portrait to monitor the epidemic allowing for assessing whether or not intervention measures are needed to keep hospital capacity under control. Using this phase portrait, we show that intervention measures were effective in mitigating a Summer resurgence but that too little too late was done to prevent a large autumn wave in Belgium.