EU estimates up to 80% of population has had COVID
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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.
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
But fresh COVID-19 surges are likely as the virus is expected to continue mutating, and therefore countries should have in place plans to shift back into emergency mode, and should ramp up vaccinations, the commission said.
In a document outlining the strategy for the post-emergency phase of the pandemic, Brussels urged governments to continue pushing for the immunization of the unvaccinated, especially children before the start of the new school term in the autumn.
