EU estimates up to 80% of population has had COVID

 

The European Commission said that between 60% and 80% of the EU population was estimated to have been infected with COVID-19, as the bloc enters a post-emergency phase in which mass reporting of cases was no longer necessary.

In preparing for this less acute phase, European Union governments should ramp up COVID-19 immunisations of children, the bloc’s executive body said, signalling it was considering plans to develop antivirals.

“It is estimated that between 60% to 80% of the EU population has by now had COVID,” EU health commissioner Stella Kyriakides told a news conference on Wednesday (27 April).

The EU public health agency said reported cases had covered about 30% of the European population so far, but if unreported infections were added, cases could be as high as 350 million, about 77% of the European population.

With a recent drop in infections and deaths linked to COVID-19, the EU is now shifting away from mass testing and reporting of cases, Kyriakides said. Ler mais