Intensive care units in the Belgian capital, Brussels, hit maximum capacity on Monday night, meaning all new patients will have to be sent to hospitals in other parts of the country for treatment, the city's health inspectorate has announced.
Brussels is asking all hospitals in the capital to create extra capacity and hopes "to increase the number of beds in ICU by 40% in the coming days, for Covid and non-Covid cases," Inge Neven, Head of the Brussels Health Inspectorate, told CNN.
"We are increasing the beds to 266 for COVID patients," and, "we are able to absorb the new patients at this moment in time ourselves," she said.
Neven added that increasing capacity was a challenge for health authorities.
There are 1,302 patients in intensive care units across Belgium -- a record high. The previous high was during the first wave of coronavirus in the spring, when Belgium reported 1,285 patients in intensive care on April 8.
There are currently 7,231 patients with Covid-19 in hospitals across Belgium -- also a record high.
An average of 586 people have been admitted to hospital each day over the past two weeks.
In the city of Brussels alone there are 1,175 people in hospital with Covid-19 -- 188 of whom are receiving intensive care.
Three coronavirus patients were transferred from Liege in Belgium to German hospitals in Munster and Bonn earlier on Tuesday, the spokesperson for the German Presidency of the EU said on social media.
Meanwhile, Switzerland's intensive care units could reach capacity in five days, Virginie Massere, the country's head of infection control, warned Tuesday
Massere was speaking after hospitalizations in the country doubled over the past week, according to data from the Swiss Federal Office for Public Health.
"The evolution is rather rapid in the number of people in intensive care," Massere said at a press conference.
There are currently 363 people in intensive care in Switzerland, meaning 45% of the country's ICU beds are full, according to Masserey.
Over the weekend Switzerland recorded 21,926 new cases of coronavirus, according to the Federal Office for Public Health. A further 6,126 new cases were recorded Tuesday.
Masserey said Switzerland was witnessing a "small slowdown in the number of cases" but that it was still too early to see the results of new coronavirus restrictions announced by the government on October 28.