Commission Communication on “A united front to beat COVID-19

Commission Communication on “A united front to beat COVID-19

The European Commission published a communication setting out a number of actions needed to step up the fight against the pandemic.

• It calls on Member States to accelerate the roll-out of vaccination across the EU. The Commission also calls on Member States to continue to apply physical distancing, limit social contacts, fight disinformation, coordinate travel restrictions, ramp up testing, and increase contact tracing and genome sequencing to face up to the risk from new variants of the virus.

Actions on vaccinations:

• By March 2021, Member States should have vaccinated a minimum of 80% of health and social care professionals and people over 80 years old.
• By summer 2021, Member States should have vaccinated a minimum of 70% of the adult population.
• A common approach on vaccination certificates is to be agreed by the end of January 2021 to allow Member States' certificates to be rapidly useable in health systems across the EU and beyond.
• Commission to set up large-scale EU-wide COVID-19 vaccine safety and effectiveness studies.

Actions on testing & genome sequencing:

• Member States should update their testing strategies to account for new variants and expand the use of rapid antigen tests.
• Member States should urgently increase genome sequencing to at least 5% and preferably 10% of positive test results.
• Member States to agree on a common list of Rapid Antigen Tests by end January.

Actions on Free Movement:

• A common EU approach to defining incidence rates should be put in place.
• Member States should give particular attention to restrictions applying to people arriving from areas with a high incidence of the new variants.
• All non-essential travel should be discouraged until the epidemiological situation improves.
• Where required, quarantine of travellers should be strictly enforced, with appropriate exceptions for travellers with an essential function or need.

Recommendations on quarantine

The Health Security Committee published agreed recommendations for a common EU approach regarding isolation for COVID-19 patients and quarantine for contacts and travellers.

Key recommendations:

• Countries should ensure that COVD-19 cases with mild or moderate symptoms are isolated for a minimum of 7-10 days and resolution of fever for at least three days.
• For severe cases, it should be ensured that the patients can be released from isolation after a period of minimum 10 to 14 days, in line with national recommendations.
• In the case of asymptomatic confirmed COVID-19 cases, countries should put in place isolation measures of 10 days after the sample was taken.
• Countries should ensure at least 10 to 14 day quarantine period for high-risk contacts with a confirmed SARS-CoV-2 positive case.
• This quarantine period could be shortened to 5 to 10 days after exposure in the absence of symptoms if an RT-PCR test or RAT, is negative at a nationally defined day e.g. 5, 7 or 10 of quarantine.
• Where quarantine requirements are imposed for travel from a high-risk area, consider shortening required quarantine time should a negative test be obtained after 5 to 7 days upon entry.
• To prevent further or re-introduction of the virus and based on an overall situation assessment, countries or subnational areas, could consider targeted testing and follow up (including quarantine) of individuals coming from other areas within the same country.