The epidemiological situation in eastern and central Europe, as well as in Belgium for the first time, has improved slightly over the past week, according to the latest map on the spread of COVID-19 issued by the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC) on Thursday.
Cyprus, together with most regions and countries in the EU and the European Economic Area (EEA), remains in the “deep red” category, the highest available category for recording the spread of COVID-19.
The province of Subcarpathia in south-eastern Poland remains in the orange category, having changed from red week last week. The Aosta Valley region in north-western Italy has also become the second region on mainland Europe to enter the orange category this week.
More regions in southern and north-western Poland have also passed from the deep red to the red category, alongside with the entirety of Romania with the exception of the capital Bucharest, which remains in the “deep red” category.
The entirety of Hungary is also now in the red category, along with most of Bulgaria with the exception of the north-eastern areas of the country. More regions in Croatia are also now in the red category.
In western Europe, Wallonia in Belgium has now passed into the red category for the first time in several months, while the situation in many regions of Spain remains improved since last week. Malta also remains in the red category.
The epidemiological situation has worsened in the overseas French territory of French Guyana in South America, dropping again from orange to red. The French overseas territory of Mayotte in the Indian Ocean remains in the “green”, that is safest, category.
For a second week in a row, the map does not include information about Sweden due to there being less than 600 tests per 100 thousand inhabitants in the last 14 days.
The map is a tool for providing updated information to local authorities and citizens on the epidemiological situation on a local level, in order to facilitate the imposition of restrictive measures and inform citizen decisions on travelling.
The ECDC map records the notification rate for COVID-19 over the past 14 days per 100 thousand people in every region of the EU/EEA countries, weighted by vaccine uptake in each region.
The ECDC map does not record the number of deaths or hospitalisations. The map also does not account for the percentage of total cases caused by the Omicron variant.
According to the ECDC’s guidelines, regions where the 14-day notification rate per 100 thousand population, weighted by vaccine uptake, is less than 40 fall into the “green” category, regions where the rate is less than 100 but 40 or more fall into the “orange” category, regions where the rate is less than 300 but 100 or more fall into the “red” category, and regions where the rate is 300 or more fall into the “dark red” category.
ECDC publishes relevant maps and data every Thursday, in support of the Council recommendation on a coordinated approach to the restriction of free movement in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. The latest revision of the Council Recommendation was adopted by EU Member States on 25 January 2022 and came into effect on 1 February 2022.
The maps are based on data reported by the Member States to the European Surveillance System (TESSy) by midnight on Tuesday.
(CNA)
