European Medicines Agency (EMA) urges the European countries to prepare for a new COVID wave. The Omicron BA.5 variant is still the dominant variant in Europe.
As COVID-19 cases tripled in the past month, calling on countries in Europe the World Health Organization said on Thursday that it expected "high levels" of the virus this summer. The milder but more contagious Covid subvariant BA.5 is spreading across Europe. As per WHO data, the 53 countries in the WHO European region are currently reporting almost 500,000 cases per day, this is up from 150,000 per day at the end of May. The present death rate in Europe is 500 per day or nearly the same as it will be in the summer of 2020.
The European Medicines Agency (EMA) also expressed doubts about giving a fourth vaccine shot to the general population, saying repeated boosters were not a "sustainable" strategy.