A “concerning” situation, time for a “last chance”: this is how Health Commissioner Stella Kyriakides presented the latest risk study on Covid-19, published on Thursday 24 September by the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC). This is a tougher tone than in the past, which the Commissioner justifies by the increase in the number of cases in the majority of Member States.
The report draws particular attention to the group of countries showing “trends of high concern”, namely Bulgaria, Croatia, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Malta, Romania and Spain. This group, which is likely to be joined by other countries, has “high or increasing notification rates”, with an increase in mortality “already observed” or “may be observed soon”.
ECDC: risk analysis and guidelines
This is the 12th risk analysis carried out by the EU agency since the onset of the disease, which has so far caused 3 million infections and 187,500 deaths in the EU/European Economic Area and the UK.
It notes that population immunity averages less than 15%, and it continues to recommend a 14-day quarantine period for people who have been in contact with a positive case (which can be reduced to 10 days after a negative PCR test).
It also places an emphasis on youth. “A large proportion of the infections occur among 15-49 year olds, who are admittedly less likely to suffer from a serious form of the disease, but are not spared from it. Of the severe cases, 44% concern this section of the population”, commented ECDC Director General Andrea Ammon to the press.
In parallel with this risk analysis, the ECDC has issued guidelines to public health authorities for the use of non-pharmaceutical measures, which state that there is still no certainty that the masks provide clinical protection.
Time to sound the alarm
For the first time, the Commission has chosen to organise a press conference to accompany the publication of this new risk analysis. The aim is to put pressure on Member States that do not seem to understand what is at stake.
“The expected and, I must say, necessary lifting of restrictions has led to what we warned against: an increase in cases. In some Member States, the situation is even worse than at the March peak and this is a real cause for concern”, said Commissioner Kyriakides, adding that control measures have not been sufficiently effective, have not been put in place or have not been followed up as they should have been.
The Commissioner made two specific requests to the Member States: on the one hand, to adopt as soon as possible the Council Recommendation on free movement (see EUROPE 12553/1) and, on the other, to make use of the tools put in place by Europe. She referred here to joint procurement of equipment, which is not exploited to its full potential (only 20 Member States participate, for example, in the one on laboratory equipment) (see EUROPE 12493/9).
State of the art on vaccines
In order to strike a better balance between the transparency required by civil society on the one hand and the confidentiality required by the pharmaceutical industry on the other, the Commission has published a ‘question-and-answer’ on the ongoing negotiations to pre-reserve vaccines for Member States (see EUROPE 12565/7).
According to Reuters, it is close to concluding exploratory discussions with the Novavax company for “at least 100 million doses”.
At this stage, two contracts have been signed: with AstraZeneca and Sanofi-GSK. And exploratory contacts have been finalised with Johnson & Johnson, CureVac, Moderna and BioNTech. See the risk analysis: https://bit.ly/3kKm4MV and the guidelines: https://bit.ly/2HtZyJS (Original version in French by Sophie Petitjean)