The Commission, in cooperation with the President of the European Council, has put forward a European roadmap to phase-out the containment measures due to the coronavirus outbreak.
While we are still in firefighting mode, the necessary extraordinary measures taken by Member States and the EU are working. They have slowed down the spread of the virus and saved thousands of lives. However, these measures and the corresponding uncertainty come at a dramatic cost to people, society and the economy, and cannot last indefinitely.
Timing is essential.
Deciding that the time has cometo begin to relax confinement should be based on these criteria:
Epidemiological criteria showing that the spread of the disease has significantly decreased and stabilised for a sustained period.
Sufficient health system capacity, for example taking into account the occupation rate for intensive care units, the availability of health care workers and medical material.
Appropriate monitoring capacity, including large-scale testing capacity to quickly detect and isolate infected individuals, as well as tracking and tracing capacity.
Coordination between Member States, to avoid negative effects. This is a matter of common European interest.
As part of the European Roadmap towards lifting coronavirus containment measures, the Commission is presenting guidelines on coronavirus testing methodologies.
The guidance aims to support Member States in effectively using testing tools in the context of their national strategies and during the different stages of the pandemic, including when phasing out confinement measures.
The Commission also aims to ensure that high-quality tools are available to assess the performance of the tests.
The availability of reliable data over time is key to lifting containment measures.
In order to achieve this, there needs to be sufficient monitoring of the progression of the coronavirus pandemic, including through large-scale testing.
Given the importance of tests in the current situation and the rapid development of the pandemic, the Commission is also insisting on pooling resources for the validation of coronavirus tests at EU level.
It is important to centralise the validation and to share the results at EU and international level. ■