The European Commission will declare that the EU has exited the emergency phase of the COVID-19 pandemic and entered a new phase during which screening must be privileged and contamination monitoring similar to that practiced for influenza , shows a draft document seen by Reuters.
This step is completed following progressive reflux infections and deaths caused by the pandemic in the European Union due to the spread of the Omicron variant, less virulent than the previous one, and theimmunity over 70% of the European population, while half of them received a booster dose of vaccination.
Brussels favors an approach “moving away from the emergency, towards a mode (of managing the pandemic) more viable“, is written in the draft document. No comment was obtained from the European Commission.
It is up to the World Health Organization (WHO) to determine when a pandemic begins and when it ends, a move that has broad legal implications for a range of industries including insurance and laboratories. The UN agency has not yet estimated that the COVID-19 pandemic is over.
The Covid “is here to stay”
Non-binding, the EU document clearly warns that “the COVID-19 is here to stay“, presumably with the emergence of new variantsand that “vigilance and preparation” thus remain essential.
news outbreaks of the pandemic are possible, warns the draft document prepared by the European Commissioner for Health, Stella Kyriakides, and which is to be adopted on Wednesday. EU governments are advised to remain on their toes and be prepared to revert to emergency measures if necessary.
A new approach
indicating that a new approach was necessary to monitor the pandemic, the text calls for systematic screening of people with symptoms of the disease and those with whom they have been in contact – a measure that some states in the bloc have abandoned, marking a sharp contrast with China where confinements and a vast screening campaign are ordered in the big cities.
The vaccines remain essential in the fight against COVID-19, underlines the draft document, recommending that EU countries consider strategies to strengthen the vaccination of children ahead of the next school year.
