The European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen said on Thursday that the EC would make "EUR 220 million available to finance a safe cross-border transfer of (Covid) patients where it is needed," to prevent the collapse of healthcare systems that are under strain.

Addressing a news conference after the EU’s video summit meeting on the coronavirus pandemic, the EC President said that the situation “is very serious.”

“Numbers of cases are rising, numbers of hospitalisation are rising, numbers of deaths are rising – not as fast fortunately, because we understand better today how to treat Covid-19-patients and how to deal with the disease. But the spread of the virus will overwhelm our healthcare systems if we do not act urgently. And it is important to act coherently across the European Union.”

In order to successfully suppress the spread of Covid-19, the EC President underscored the four elements: the exchange of best experiences, large-scale testing, tracing and vaccination.

“Our goal is keeping the virus in check and that goes through massive testing. So we agreed that we need to have quick validation at EU level of the new tests, and this refers mainly to the rapid antigen tests that are currently being developed.” she said.

“We have the PCR testing and we have the new rapid antigen tests. We will work on the validation on EU level, because this will then enable us to describe the optimal setting for the different forms of tests and it will enable us for a mutual recognition of test results across the European Union. And that, of course, is important, mainly when essential travel is taking place,” von der Leyen said adding that “testing and tracing go hand-in-hand.”

“Twenty two Member States have developed a tracing app or are developing a tracing app. The Commission created a European gateway for interoperability between the Member States. Three apps are connected since Monday and during the months of November, 19 other ones will join this European gateway. At the moment being, we have approximately 50 million downloads concerning smartphone holders. But this is not enough. So we need across-the-board coverage in the European Union.”

As for vaccines and vaccination, upon their validation, a fair distribution of vaccines to Member States will be ensured.

“There, I have good news. The Member States will all get vaccines at the same time and at the same conditions, based on their share of the EU population they have. And this is already fixed with the Member States, we have already agreed on that,” she said.