Wearing masks in public places is increasingly seen as having an important contribution to containing the spread of COVID-19 as countries transition out of lockdown measures, especially when physical distancing is not always possible.  

Providing appropriate emotional, financial and practical support to protect health workers’ mental health and wellbeing and enable them to do their job are crucial to delivering an effective COVID-19 response.

COVID-19 spreads through inhalation of small droplets from the coughing or sneezing of people who are infected, as well as through touching contaminated surfaces. Hence, public health measures in the form of isolation and quarantine of confirmed and suspected cases are key to preventing the further spread of the virus.

Many countries around the world are currently planning measures for re-opening their economies in the wake of the first wave of coronavirus, or for that matter taking them. There is little sign of coordination or a common approach to this difficult problem. 

In order to know when to lift or impose restrictions, governments need good data and the ability to interpret it.

Creating a strategic plan to manage coronavirus is only part of the battle. A number of mediating factors govern the extent to which strategic plans will actually be effective. 

To combat the COVID-19 pandemic, countries are mobilizing additional domestic resources for their health systems, not to mention for other forms of social protection and economic stimuli. But how much extra money are we really talking about when it comes to health?

Policy-makers are currently facing the challenge of striking the right balance between two competing goals: ensuring adequate capacities to treat those affected by COVID-19 and providing services that are necessary to maintain the health of the population. 

Digital health tools are playing a central role in responding to COVID-19; some are established tools, some are existing tools being used in new ways, and increasingly there is attention to developing specific new digital health tools to respond to the pandemic.

Health care providers need flexibility to be able to respond quickly to meet increased demand in the outbreak, to offer new methods of service delivery and to maintain essential health services for non-COVID-19 conditions. The way in which providers are paid can be an obstacle to these objectives.

A strong health system response to the pandemic requires additional public funds that can be deployed quickly and transparently. Without additional public funding, the health system will not only struggle to control the pandemic but also may fail to maintain essential health services for other conditions.

Households increasingly face financial strain as the COVID-19 outbreak becomes an economic crisis in many countries. If people face concerns about health care affordability, they may delay seeking treatment or be prevented from obtaining the services they need, making the outbreak harder to control.

Within and across European countries, there is great divergence in hospital bed and intensive care unit (ICU) capacity. To alleviate pressure on intensive-care capacity, national and regional governments and hospitals have started to help each other by transferring critically ill patients from the worst-hit regions.

The COVID-19 pandemic has placed immense pressure on the health workforce across Europe and worldwide, which has been exacerbated by workforce depletion as health professionals themselves are at high risk of being infected by COVID-19.

The COVID-19 pandemic has led to many countries facing shortages of sufficient personal protective equipment (PPE). The combination of increased demand for PPE and large disruptions in the global marketplace has made it difficult for virtually all countries to obtain PPE for their own needs. 

Intersectoral governance for health has long been seen as a “nice to have”- a search for useful win-wins between sectors. In the COVID-19 pandemic, it is critical and occurring virtually everywhere in one way or another. 

Since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, countries have been advised by WHO to expand testing in order to detect COVID-19 cases early, ensure their isolation, trace and isolate their contacts, and determine the epidemiological situation as accurately as possible.

Available evidence indicates that while anyone can become infected and become ill with COVID-19, older people and those with chronic conditions are most susceptible to serious complications or death. This raises important questions, a priori, about the vulnerability of European populations to COVID-19 based on their age-demographics and disease.