Remarks by Vice-President Margaritis Schinas and Commissioner Stella Kyriakides at the press conference on preparedness for future possible outbreaks of COVID-19

16 Jul 2020 01:24 PM

"Check against delivery"

Remarks by Vice-President Margaritis Schinas

"Let me start by saying that now we know more about the virus. More about its impact. But we don't know everything yet. Our duty is to remain vigilant and preventive. This is an opportunity to avoid improvisation and plan ahead in the next 3 months.

The set of measures we are here to present aim to counter further eventual outbreaks of COVID-19. We draw on the lessons of the past months we are reinforcing our preparedness on all fronts, preserving the single market, freedoms, and facilitating the path towards economic and social recovery across the EU.

The virus is still with us and is still expanding in several regions world-wide. Within the EU, there are some focalised and well identified outbreaks, where action is being deployed to ensure they remain under control.

In the last 4 months, public health measures helped bring the pandemic down to a level manageable by national health systems, which, in turn, allowed for the progressive lifting of many restrictions and the resumption of most activities across Europe in this very atypical European summer.

A range of measures has also been introduced at EU and national levels to mitigate the social and economic impacts of the pandemic and kick start the economic recovery and our leaders are meeting on Friday to seal hopefully the agreement on the Next Generation EU.

This period of lower transmission rates is an opportunity to reinforce our capacity of response.

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