If we had it to do over again, we could have lowered the curve, but we wouldn't have been able to stop the spread of Covid-19. On Monday 4 May, this was the point made by Andrea Ammon to MEPs on the European Parliament's Committee on Public Health.
The Director of the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC) also responded to criticism of the agency by some MEPs, especially regarding their delayed reaction and an ambiguous position on the issue of masks.
We could only have lowered the curve
So far, the European Commission and, by extension, the ECDC, have been rather reluctant to evaluate themselves. Last week, Commissioner Stella Kyriakides explained to the same MEPs that the urgency was crisis management and that evaluating the European response would come “in a second stage” (see EUROPE 12471/3).
The director of the ECDC, herself, has dared to question some of these. However, in her view, it would have been very difficult to prevent the spread of the virus because of its characteristics, in particular the speed at which it spreads and the fact that an asymptomatic person can transmit it.
The Director General said that her agency had been informed of the first cases of Covid-19 at the end of 2019, after which the agency held an initial assessment briefing on 9 January and published an initial risk assessment on 17 January. Today is the agency's ninth update, Ms Ammon said.
At present, Bulgaria is the only country still experiencing an increase in the number of cases, while Poland, Romania, Sweden and the United Kingdom have seen no substantial changes in the last 14 days. “All other Member States have seen a decrease in the number of cases”, she said.
MEPs' doubts.
Challenged on her ambiguous position on the issue of masks by MEP Frédérique Ries (Renew Europe, Belgium), Andrea Ammon recalled that there were few studies proving the added value of fabric masks. She recalled that there are two categories of masks: on the one hand, FFP2 and FFP3, used in hospitals, which can protect against infection, and, on the other hand, surgical or fabric masks used in the community, which protect others from infection, “but not the wearer of the mask”, who will be more likely to touch their face, and therefore put themselves in danger, with a mask. “And this is what we said in our guidelines”, she said, stressing that the mask should not be seen as the only solution (see EUROPE 12457/7). “It has to be a complementary tool, in addition to social distance, hand washing, etc. It can contribute to the fight, but it is not the only measure”.
Finally, the Director General advised against classifying countries into categories as the holidays approach, as some diplomats would have mentioned to Frédérique Ries. This prioritisation between “high-risk, at risk or safe" countries is unreliable, Ms Ammon said. She justifies this with, “given the low confidence that we have on whether the death records are complete or not”. In her opinion, it is better to talk about an at-risk group (the elderly).
The ECDC’s needs
When asked about the needs of the ECDC, she called for an improved crisis monitoring system. “Surveillance largely depends on the information provided by health experts. But right now, they're too busy to report. In my opinion, one of the measures that will need to be pursued after the crisis is to digitise this surveillance system”, she said, adding that this would require national systems to follow this trend and that it would cost money. (Original version in French by Sophie Petitjean)