Thread by @kakape

New @ECDC_EU risk assessment on variants of concern says likelihood of them spreading in Europe is very high, likely leading to more transmission and death. “Stricter NPIs are needed to reduce transmission and relieve the pressure on healthcare systems.”

ecdc.europa.eu/en/publication…

Detection:
- “Member States need to increase the level of surveillance and sequencing of a representative sample of community #COVID19 cases”
- “Member States should prepare laboratories for a higher demand for testing”

Curbing transmission:
- compliance with stricter non-pharmaceutical interventions than those currently implemented, and strengthened case detection with contact tracing
- non-essential travel should be avoided
- accelerate vaccination of high-risk groups

To be clear:
None of this is new or surprising.
What we need to do to combat #SARSCoV2 hasn’t changed.
It has just become a bit harder and a lot more urgent.
Story in 2021 is no different from 2020: We should have done more and we should have done it sooner.

And on immune escape:

“Member States should monitor vaccine effectiveness for these new variants. Breakthrough infections should be monitored, carefully investigated (including sequencing the virus variant causing breakthrough infection), and reported”.