Burden of COVID-19 on primary care in Belgium: a prospective nationwide observational study from March to August 2020.

Background: The COVID-19 outbreak had an important impact on general practice, for example the lack of personal protective equipment (PPE) and the switch to telephone consultations. We installed a monitoring instrument and reported the burden the COVID-19 pandemic placed on Belgian general practitioners (GPs) during the first wave of the pandemic.

Methods: We conducted an observational longitudinal prospective study from the 19 of March until the 17 of August 2020.