Where are the ECDC and the EU-wide responses in the COVID-19 pandemic?

Abstract

5Ferguson N, Laydon D, Nedjati-Gilani G, et al. Report 9: impact of non-pharmaceutical interventions (NPIs) to reduce COVID-19 mortality and healthcare demand. March 16, 2020. https://www.imperial.ac.uk/ media/imperial-college/medicine/sph/ide/ gida-fellowships/Imperial-College-COVID19-NPI-modelling-16-03-2020.pdf (accessed April 1, 2020). 6 Dahab M, van Zandvoort K, Flasche S, et al. COVID-19 control in low-income settings and displaced populations: what can realistically be done? March 20, 2020. https://www.lshtm.ac. uk/newsevents/news/2020/covid-19-controllow-income-settings-and-displacedpopulations-what-can (accessed April 1, 2020).12 months of background mortality risk, averaged across all age groups. By contrast, in Malawi this risk is equivalent to 4 months of background mortality (appendix). This reflects higher background mortality rates in Malawi, underscoring the fragility of health under normal circumstances. Malawi (median age 17 years) also has relatively few older citizens, with 6•6% of the population older than 60 years. This makes alternative strategies potentially safer and more feasible than lockdown-eg, community-led approaches to support older people to self-isolate with provision of food, medicine, and wellbeing support. 6 Although we fully agree that macroeconomic arguments against lockdown cannot justify widespread loss of life in Europe and Asia, the considerations are very different in Africa, where lockdown could cost many lives. We urge African governments to carefully contextualise safe physical distancing policies that maximise likely benefits. Without a context-specific, ethical approach to physical distancing, unintended harms from stringent lockdown could pose more harm than the direct effects of COVID-19 itself.We declare no competing interests.

The underlying factors of the COVID‐19 spatially uneven spread. Initial evidence from regions in nine EU countries

“…While some EU countries decided to follow the “herd immunity” strategy (Sweden and the Netherlands to a certain extent), governments in other countries (such as Spain, Italy and Greece) imposed strict horizontal lockdown and quarantine measures across all their regions (Renda & Castro, 2020). Although they lacked co‐ordination (Jordana & Triviño‐Salazar, 2020), these lockdown measures prevented or delayed millions of COVID‐19 infections (Hsiang et al, 2020). Mitigation policies could include mass gatherings restrictions, home isolation and general lockdown.…”

“…Although they lacked co-ordination (Jordana & Triviño-Salazar, 2020), these lockdown measures prevented or delayed millions of COVID-19 infections (Hsiang et al, 2020…”

“…The measures implemented by the national governments to mitigate the virus impacts present a significant degree of differentiation across countries in terms of timing and restrictiveness. This partly indicates the lack of EU‐wide co‐ordination regarding the response against the COVID‐19, as the EU governments underestimated the virus (Jordana & Triviño‐Salazar, 2020). European countries borrowed time, considering the fact that the first case was officially recorded two months after the outbreak of COVID‐19 in China.…”

COVID‐19: test, trace and isolate‐new epidemiological data

“…ECDC is underfunded (CDC in 2020: 8 billion $, ECD 60 million $) and understaffed (CDC: 10 800, ECDC: 270 employees). An emergency structure for a pandemic was not set up, and ECDC played essentially no role in pandemic crisis management, which was done according to EU laws by national organizations without any European coordination (Jordana and Triviño-Salazar, 2020). Even the city-state of Singapore, where the early handling of the COVID-19 was lauded as exemplary public health action, had 'blind spots' on their screen in overlooking the miserable living conditions of migrant workers that became hotspots of COVID-19 transmission.…”

Global Health needs more than International Health Regulations – the case of Covid-19

“…Not only WHO, but also other institutions such as the European Centre for Disease Control (ECDC) were criticised in a comparable way [9]. This could be conceived as an indication of another underlying political crisis, here of the EU.…”