Thread by @EckerleIsabella

Happy & proud to share the results of our high level expert group our roadmap on towards stabilization of the #COVID19 #pandemic in the European Region #SARSCoV2 #Europe @WHO_Europe What are our 10 objectives (shortened, for full text see link): 1/
euro.who.int/__data/assets/…

1. Increasing as fast and massively as possible #vaccine coverage, close the vaccine gaps btw producing/high income countries & middle/low-income countries. No strong evidence for 3rd dose for all people but consider for vulnerable to keep them safe. 2/

Equity across countries should be seen as priority in Europe at this time. Before delivering 3rd doses, all at-risk populations in all countries of the region should be offered the first two doses of vaccine. 3/

2. Aligning border control measures at EU/EECA and European Region levels: Avoid border closures, particularly when epidemic levels do not differ significantly between neighbouring countries 4/

3. Reducing the risk of acquiring #COVID19 in #children so as to allow for #schools to remain open by focusing on indoor ventilation, mask wearing, physical distancing, hand hygiene & smart frequent testing; promote vaccines for teachers & school personal 5/

4. Promoting #masks -wearing indoors, including public transportation, and encouraging #homeoffice and distant meetings when possible 6/

5. Implementing and continuously monitoring public health intervention measures, balancing their epidemiological and societal footprint, including nonpharmaceutical interventions, backward and forward tracing, sustained but targeted quarantines, with economic support 7/

6. More equally distributing the #sequencing capacity within the entire region, to help better identification and tracing of #variants. This may require consolidating a network of laboratories across Europe and putting in place adequate sample shipment and information sharing 8/

7. Building a Regional Public Health #surveillance system as a pan-European initiative, based on existing tools, with agreed shared core data and format, and made publicly available on near-real time, allowing for short-term forecasting 9/

8. Developing research capacities and data collection to better understand, prevent and treat #LongCovid and all long term direct and indirect consequences of Sars-Cov-2 infection and of the pandemic 10/

9. Launching a far-reaching pan-European R&D programme, in coordination with #EU initiatives, for research, development and clinical evaluation of different #treatment components against COVID-19. New effective therapies urgently needed! 11/

10. Assessing how to better organize and conduct periodic evaluations and learning from experience.

Document may be therefore revised and updated in the upcoming weeks or months 12/

Members of the expert group: @FLAHAULT (chair) @DgCostagliola Oxana Drapkina @c_drosten Sharon Elroy @legidoquigley Alexey Tsoi for @WHO Task Force @hans_kluge @WHO_Europe & team 13/

My personal take: We can & will end this #pandemic but there are just no quick or magic bullets. We need patience & solidarity, until every individual, independent of country and age, has access to #COVID19 disease-preventing & live-saving vaccines #SARSCoV2 14/