Speech by Commissioner Kyriakides at the Press Conference on COVID-19 – Sustaining EU Preparedness and Response: Looking ahead
Ladies and gentlemen,
A great deal has changed since I last spoke to you in this pressroom about the COVID-19 pandemic.
Since then, the situation has stabilised thanks to the strong coordination at EU level, notably through our successful Vaccines Strategy, our coordination of public health measures and also with a now dominant variant that is less severe than previous ones.
With infections still in the millions worldwide, so we need to be very clear that the pandemic is still with us.
At the same time, We are no longer witnessing the same pressure on our hospitals, restrictions are being lifted and societies and economies are returning to a more normal situation.
We are all aware how exhausted people are about the changes in their lives over the last 2 years. The numbers speak for themselves, as it is estimated that between 60 to 80% of the EU population has by now had COVID.
We are entering another phase of the pandemic. A new phase that requires us to rethink how we manage the virus.
This is why we are today presenting a new approach and are setting out actions to help us all to “look ahead” and move from emergency to a more sustainable management of the pandemic.
As we have said many times since the beginning of the pandemic, preparedness is key.
What we are proposing to Member States is actions geared towards changing how we manage the current phase and ensuring that we are ready to react quickly if the situation changes again.
With this we have one goal in mind: to protect public health while keeping society and economy open and resilient.
Whilst we look ahead to the coming months with optimism, waning immunity, whether natural or through vaccination, possible winter seasonality, and the continued global circulation of the virus all make it probable that new variants will emerge and spread in the future.
As we have all seen over the last two years, the situation can change quickly.
This is why my message today to Member States is a very clear one: we must not lower our guard. How we prepare for the next phase today will determine the course of the pandemic over the coming months and years.
Let me highlight some of the particularly important actions we are presenting today: we are calling on Member States, always in a coordinated European way, to make use of this window of opportunity:
First, to adapt their surveillance and testing systems. In this new phase we are changing the way we monitor the spread of the virus. Instead of mass testing we shift the focus to the most representative cases and obtaining reliable estimates of the intensity of transmission, of the impact of severe disease and on vaccine effectiveness.
This is why we are inviting Member States to put in place integrated, sustainable, year-round surveillance systems for all acute respiratory illnesses, covering not only COVID-19, but also influenza and other respiratory viruses.
On our side, we will support Member States in developing integrated and digitalised surveillance systems through the EU4Health programme and in collaboration with ECDC. We will also help to strengthen networks of laboratories across the EU to identify and assess newly emerging variants.
Second, when it comes to the resilience of national healthcare systems, all Member States must be ready for possibly increasing numbers of cases of COVID-19 or seasonal influenza.
This includes hospital capacity and continuous preparedness to swiftly scale up testing efforts if needed.
Third, when it comes to vaccination, efforts must continue to increase the uptake and push forward with the booster campaigns. Boosters are currently plateauing at around 64% of the adult population and we have still over 90 million unvaccinated persons in the EU.
The future of vaccines is a key area that we must focus on. We continue working with researchers and vaccine manufacturers to develop variant-proof vaccines that offer longer term protection against infection.
On our side, we will work to develop a strategy for next generation vaccines.
We have launched a process to secure the manufacturing capacities for vaccines in Europe under EU-FAB, with a view to ensure that we have suitable vaccines when needed.
And fourthly, we need to strengthen overall pandemic preparedness. From the beginning, we have said that this is not about Europe first. We need to improve access to COVID-19 vaccines and therapeutics globally. Now that supply issues have been addressed, our focus should be on global vaccination and improving infrastructure issues to increase vaccination coverage on other continents.
We also need to bring attention to structural issues that are becoming more apparent such as long-COVID, which could affect more than 10% of those having had COVID-19, this needs to be taken very seriously. We must also continue our efforts to tackle misinformation and disinformation around vaccination.
Ladies and gentlemen, our message today is clear: a great deal has been achieved, but preparedness and structural resilience are key.
With this Communication, we will be able to move forward, together with our Member States.
The swift adoption of all European Health Union proposals will further strengthen our capacity to prevent, prepare and respond to health crises.
Thank you.