Coronavirus, Europe’s health policy and the challenges ahead – Academic perspective
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The difficulty to forecast the level of spread and danger of the Coronavirus is linked to the fact that the biggest problem that we have is that “we don’t know the virus’ basic reproduction number, or R0. If we don’t know this, our forecasts are really only estimates.”
Andrea Crisanti, a Professor of Microbiology at Padua University, told New Europe the at the beginning, the told us that the reproductive index of the virus was 1.4, or 1.5 but now this seems to be wrong so it is still difficult to understand if we reached the “highest” point of the virus.
Asked about Europe’s role in this crisis, Crisanti said that “Every country has different priorities and different experts that don’t agree with each other, I don’t know if Europe should or could have done more, but it’s a fact that Brussels failed to confront the crisis in a coherent way.
The EU gave several contradictory messages during the critical early stages of the outbreak. For example, some countries stopped all flights from China while some others kept the door open. All of that was going on while some other European countries screened only those who were already sick people, while others examined everybody.
The real problem here in Europe is that there’s no common EU health policy. This really is a shame because the European Union has all the resources to take action during moments like this.
China reported a sharp decrease in new deaths and cases of the coronavirus on Saturday but a doubling of infections in South Korea and 10 new cases in Iran added to unease about its rapid spread and global reach.
WHO director-general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus on Twitter expressed concern on Saturday about cases with no clear link to China and called on all countries to invest urgently in preparedness. He made an appeal for $675 million to support the most vulnerable countries.
On Friday, he said now was the time to act decisively. “We still have a chance to contain it,” he said. “If we don’t, if we squander the opportunity, then there will be a serious problem on our hands.”
Japan confirmed 14 new coronavirus cases on Saturday, among those a teacher who had shown symptoms while working at her school.
Japan is facing growing questions about whether it is doing enough to contain its spread, and concern about whether it could scupper this year’s Tokyo Olympics. Organisers on Saturday postponed the start of training for volunteers as a precaution.
