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On Thursday Stella Kyriakides, European Commissioner for Health and Food Safety, during a press conference in Brussels presented the report of the European Center for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC) on the situation of coronavirus infection in the European Union and in the United Kingdom. According to the report, cases of contagion have increased steadily in all EU countries and in the UK since August 2020, although they have not had the same impact in all countries. Kyriakides, commenting on this new growth of infections, said:
We are at a decisive moment and we must all act decisively. It could be our last chance to prevent the situation of last spring from happening again.
We are at a decisive moment. And everyone also has to act decisively. It could be our last chance to avoid a repeat of last spring.
➡️ All Member States must be prepared to implement measures immediately and at the right time# Stronger together # COVID-19 pic.twitter.com/nruqGDcUts
– Stella Kyriakides (@SKyriakidesEU) September 24, 2020
The ECDC document classifies the epidemiological situation of the countries dividing them into two groups: those with “stable trends” and those with “worrying trends”. Countries with “worrying trends” are defined as those in which, in the space of two weeks, there is an increase in infections of more than 60,000. The countries in which this increase occurs only in the oldest age groups (that is, among those over 65) belong to the same category, when a value of more than 3% of positive or positive swabs is recorded for seven consecutive days. an increase of this value for 7 consecutive days, or when a mortality rate of more than 10 deaths per million people is observed for seven consecutive days. Countries where contagion data remain below these parameters are considered to have “stable trends”.
Based on the data collected up to September 13, the countries considered to have “stable trends” are Italy, Belgium, Cyprus, Finland, Germany, Greece, Iceland, Latvia, Liechtenstein, Lithuania, Poland and Sweden. According to the ECDC report on these countries, “the overall probability of infection is considered low.” Deaths are low because the percentage of the elderly and people with previous illnesses who fall ill is low. However, there is a risk for these categories if the virus were to spread again given its severity. However, the overall risk in these countries is rated “moderate”. To avoid a rapid worsening of the health situation, follow-up is essential for the ECDC in these countries, not only of new cases, but also of hospitalizations, and in particular of those in intensive care, and especially among the risk categories.
The countries defined with “worrying trends” are the United Kingdom and the rest of the European Union countries: that is, Austria, Bulgaria, Croatia, Denmark, Estonia, France, Ireland, Luxembourg, Malta, Netherlands, Portugal, Czech Republic , Romania, Slovakia. , Slovenia, Spain and Hungary. For the ECDC in these countries, the increase in contagion cases can only be partially explained by a higher number of swabs carried out in recent weeks (for example, in Luxembourg, Denmark and the United Kingdom).
In these countries, the high transmission of the virus seems to show that the measures to prevent infection have not worked, have not been fully respected or have not been sufficient. Furthermore, data from serological tests in these countries, which represent the majority of the Union, suggest that the level of immunity of the population is below 15%. As the vaccine will not be available in the short term, according to the ECDC, the population’s vulnerability to infection remains high.
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