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The EU ambassadors agreed yesterday afternoon on a recommendation to better coordinate national measures to contain the coronavirus pandemic. This is to be achieved in particular through a traffic light system to assess the risk of individual regions. This should enable EU countries to assess them in the same way and, if necessary, to impose objective travel restrictions, according to informed sources.
In addition, EU members are to recognize coronavirus tests from certified health care facilities in another EU country in the future. Furthermore, a uniform EU-wide form for the localization of passengers is planned. The recommendation is to be formally adopted at the General Council in Luxembourg on Tuesday.
Austria’s abstention
Austria is represented by the Minister of European Affairs Karoline Edtstadler (ÖVP). She told the APA in advance: “In principle, we are in favour of increased Covid 19 EU coordination, but as the EU criteria are not yet sufficiently accurate, Austria abstained from today’s vote. The EU states have not yet been able to agree on a uniform duration for the quarantine regulation.
Clear criteria for coloring
The Coronavirus traffic light is a map produced by the European Health Agency ECDC, which is based on the following data sets, which are to be registered by the EU countries: Number of new infections per 100,000 inhabitants in the last 14 days cumulatively, the rate of positive tests and the test rate. In addition, the test rate and the rate of positive tests of the past week are to be reported at national level.
If the average number of new infections in a region in the last 14 days is below 25 per 100,000 inhabitants and the rate of positive tests is below four percent, a region is classified as green and no travel restrictions should be imposed.
The traffic light switches to orange if the new infection rate is less than 50 cases but a region has four or more percent of positive tests, or the number of new infections per 100,000 inhabitants between 25 and 150 is less than four percent of positive tests.
A region is marked with the signal color red if the number of new infections per 100,000 inhabitants exceeds 50 and more than four percent of the tests performed are positive, or if the rate of new infections is more than 150 cases. If there is not enough data from a region or if the test rate is below 300 tests per 100,000 inhabitants, a region cannot be evaluated and is given the color gray.
— Hector Pascua, Source: ORF.at/agencies. Picture: stockilyapp.com
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