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19 January 2021 "The EU asks member states to vaccinate 80% of health workers and over 80s by March and 70% of adults by summer".

This was stated by the vice president of the EU Commission, Margaritis Schinas, presenting the new communication published by the community executive to "beat Covid-19 united" in view of the videoconference of the leaders on Thursday.



Mass vaccination

There is no room to be satisfied, but we are beginning to see the end of the pandemic as the mass vaccination proceeds.

This is the message from the European Commission which today published yet another communication on the management of the health crisis precisely in the days in which one of the two main pharmaceutical companies, which are working in a consortium with which the EU has signed a commercial contract for the supply of vaccines, has held back production for a limited period of time (this is Pfizer / BionTech).



The objectives of Europe

On Thursday it will be up to the heads of state and government gathered by videoconference to take stock of the situation: at the center of the discussion the cooperation on vaccines (a bit cracked by the parallel contract signed by Germany with Pfizer / BioNTech) and of vaccination on an EU scale.

Brussels proposes these targets for mass vaccination: by March at least 80% of people over the age of 80, 80% of medical, paramedical and assistance staff in each state will have to be vaccinated.

States should vaccinate at least 70% of the adult population by the summer.



Variant alert

The Commission called on Member States to continue to apply physical distance, limit social contacts, combat disinformation, coordinate travel restrictions, accelerate testing and increase contact tracing and genome sequencing to address risk resulting from new variants of the virus.

As the past few weeks have seen an upward trend in case numbers, "more needs to be done to support health systems and to tackle 'Covid fatigue' in the coming months by speeding up vaccination across the board, helping our partners in the Western Balkans, those in the Southern and Eastern neighborhood and in Africa ".



Genome sequencing

Brussels indicates that vaccination certificates will have to comply with data protection legislation.

A common approach will be agreed by the end of the month for using Member State certificates in health systems across the EU and outside the EU.

As regards research into new virus variants, Member States should urgently increase genome sequencing to at least 5% and preferably 10% of positive test results.

At the moment, many Member States are testing less than 1% of the samples and "this is not enough to identify the progression of variants or detect new ones".



Antivirus measures

Finally, the standard anti-pandemic measures are reaffirmed to further reduce the risk of transmission linked to means of travel, such as hygiene and removal measures in vehicles and terminus lines.

All non-essential travel should be strongly discouraged until the epidemiological situation has significantly improved.

And proportionate travel restrictions, including traveler testing, should be maintained for those traveling from areas with a higher incidence of variants of concern.

To ensure quick access to vaccines, the Commission has set up the Team Europe mechanism to structure the provision of vaccines shared by Member States with partner countries.