EU to strengthen counter-coronavirus cooperation at highest level: Council President

The heads of states and governments of the European Union have agreed to reinforce the cooperation and make the coordination regular around issues pertaining to the fight against COVID-19, European Council President Charles Michel said on Friday.

"The situation is serious and unprecedented. And we took the decision to strengthen our European cooperation, especially on testing and tracing. And we also took the decision to orgse, on a regular basis, cooperation and coordination at the level of the head of states or governments," Michel said ahead of the second day of EU leaders summit.

The World Health Orgsation declared COVID-19 a pandemic on March 11. Collective Europe emerged as the world's biggest outbreak in the beginning of the year, and most EU member states imposed strict measures aimed at curbing the spread of the disease. Following a retraction of these measures during the summer, the fall brought a resurgence of cases across Europe.

On Thursday, WHO Regional Director for Europe Hans Kluge said that the region's prolonged relaxed COVID-19 policies could lead to daily mortality in January being four or five times higher than in April. He stressed, however, that the increase in the number of cases was first of all associated with the increased number of tests.

According to the latest WHO estimates, more than 38.3 million COVID-19 cases have been confirmed globally by now. Europe currently stands as the third-worst-affected region to the Americas and South-East Asia, with just above 7.4 million cases. (/Sputnik)

( With inputs from ANI )