The battle against Covid-19 continues in Europe. With EU leaders due to meet at the end of the day, the European Commission published its annual health report on Thursday 19 November, which concludes that the pandemic has revealed “latent weaknesses in health systems that existed before the epidemic”.
Prepared in cooperation with the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), the paper also notes that the current health crisis has highlighted shortages of health professionals in many countries. It stresses the importance of social determinants, recalling that the crisis has affected poor people more widely and adding that older people have been disproportionately affected.
“In several countries, there was at least a two-month lag between the first reported Covid-19 cases and the issuance of guidelines to prevent infections in LTC institutions. In a quarter of countries for which information is available, it took two weeks longer to restrict visits to nursing homes than the restrictions imposed in public spaces “, it acknowledges.
On the same day, the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC) published a new risk assessment, which underscores that the situation of residents in long-term care facilities is currently worrying in all but one European Economic Area country and the United Kingdom. The overall probability of infection and spread of the virus and, indeed, the risk in such a structure is considered “very high”, he adds.
It should be noted that the Centre has also published the technical criteria on rapid tests announced the day before in the Commission Recommendation (see EUROPE 12604/4).
The other EU agency involved in the fight against Covid, the European Medicines Agency (EMA), has announced that, given the current hesitation about vaccination, it will hold a public meeting to answer citizens’ questions on 11 December.
See the Commission’s report: https://bit.ly/35HJyO2 and the ECDC evaluation: https://bit.ly/3lLZC71 and https://bit.ly/332uPvs (Original version in French by Sophie Petitjean)