The purpose of this report is to provide a concise overview of the epidemiological situation of the COVID-19 pandemic and vaccine uptake by country. It presents trends over time of selected epidemiological indicators for COVID-19 based on multiple sources of data. For all countries globally that have reported COVID-19 cases to date, the main indicator shown is the 14-day notification rate of reported COVID-19 cases per 100 000 population, which provides an estimate of the prevalence of active cases in the population. A 14-day notification rate of reported deaths per 1 000 000 population is also plotted on the time-series for each country to show trends in deaths compared to cases.
A more nuanced assessment of the epidemiological situation in EU/EEA Member States is made possible by surveillance data routinely collected by ECDC.
COVID-19 vaccine uptake in EU/EEA countries is presented for at least one vaccine dose, primary course and subsequent booster doses in the total population, by age groups and other target populations (e.g. healthcare workers).
This report complements the detailed presentation of epidemiological data in ECDC’s weekly surveillance report, the interactive ECDC COVID-19 dashboard and COVID-19 vaccine tracker.
Interpretation of COVID-19 data presented on this report
A list of country-specific data disclaimers can be found in the ‘Country disclaimers’ section of the ECDC COVID-19 dashboard and COVID-19 vaccine tracker.
The 14-day notification rate of new COVID-19 cases, along with the 14-day death rate are the main indicators displayed. These rates are calculated based on data collected by the ECDC Epidemic Intelligence from various sources and are affected by the local testing strategy, laboratory capacity and the effectiveness of surveillance systems. Comparing the epidemiological situation regarding COVID-19 between countries should therefore not be based on these rates alone. At individual country level, this indicator may however be useful for monitoring the national situation over time.
Testing policies and the number of tests performed per 100 000 persons, vary markedly across the EU/EEA and presumably even more so among third countries. More extensive testing will inevitably lead to more cases being detected.
The 14-day notification rate of new COVID-19 cases should be used in combination with other factors including testing policies, number of tests performed, test positivity, excess mortality and rates of hospital and Intensive Care Unit (ICU) admissions, when analysing the epidemiological situation in a country. Most of these indicators are presented for EU/EEA Member States in this report.
Data on vaccine uptake are updated every two weeks based on the current schedule of data submission from EU/EEA countries to TESSy. Details on the definitions of vaccine uptake indicators may be found in the ‘COVID-19 vaccine data’ section in the COVID-19 vaccine tracker.
Even when using several indicators in combination, comparisons between countries should be done with caution and relevant epidemiological expertise.
Data downloads
The data behind many of the plots are available to download from ECDC’s website.
Global
The report is arranged into chapters, the first of which covers all countries globally, the second focuses on EU/EEA Member States overall, and subsequent chapters present information for each Member State. Data on new cases and deaths in all countries globally are collected weekly by ECDC’s epidemic intelligence team and made available to download on ECDC’s website and COVID-19 vaccine tracker.
EU/EEA
Sources of data used for the EU/EEA figures are shown under each plot. All data are shown for the calendar week ending the previous Sunday. Starting in week 44 in 2020, data from France for some indicators (testing rate, test positivity and subnational case notification rates) have been provided for a week that runs from Saturday to Friday (i.e. two days earlier than calendar week). Data for all other indicators from France are for the calendar week. A list of country-specific data disclaimers can be found in the ‘Country disclaimers’ section of the ECDC COVID-19 dashboard.
Figures displaying 14-day COVID-19 case and death notification rates are based on data collected weekly by the ECDC’s epidemic intelligence team. More information on how the ECDC’s epidemic intelligence team collects data can be found at https://www.ecdc.europa.eu/en/covid-19/data-collection.
Figures displaying 14-day age-specific COVID-19 case notification rate are based on data provided directly by Member States to ECDC via The European Surveillance System (TESSy).
The figures displayed for weekly testing rate, weekly testing positivity, daily hospital occupancy, daily ICU occupancy, weekly rate of new hospital admissions and weekly rate of new ICU admissions are based on several data sources, labeled as follows:
‘TESSy COVID-19’: data provided directly by Member States to ECDC via TESSy.
‘ECDC database compiled from public online sources’: the data displayed have been automatically or manually retrieved (‘web-scraped’) daily from national/official public online sources from EU/EEA Member States. It should be noted that there are several limitations to this type of data. Scraped data are not available for all variables and/or countries due to content variability on national websites. Additionally, the data collection process requires constant adaptation to avoid to interrupted time series (i.e. due to modification of website pages, types of data). Hospital and ICU admission criteria, and policies to report these data differ between countries and over time, which may result biased estimates derived from such data.
The data related to non-pharmaceutical interventions (NPIs) in EU/EEA Member States are maintained by ECDC using information from national/official public online sources.
The data on COVID-19 vaccine doses are periodically submitted to TESSy by EU/EEA countries.
In order to improve data quality, ECDC is continuously monitoring the data available in the public domain and updating the datasets accordingly.
Long-term care facility data
Definitions used for the long-term care facility (LCTF) data reported at the national level can be found in the related ECDC surveillance protocol. The data sources for the denominator ‘number of LTCF beds’ are presented on ECDC’s website.
Description of data collected through the LTCF surveillance activity each week including the contextual information for the weekly trends that are collected by the associated ‘Periodic Survey’ and caveats provided by the EU/EEA countries that participated in weekly aggregated LTCF COVID-19 reporting is available in the technical report published by ECDC.
Subnational data
For some countries, multiple sources of subnational data have been used for 14-day notification rates. For the subnational map for EU/EEA Member States, weekly data collected by epidemic intelligence have been used. For time-series plots, daily data provide the smoothest plot. Therefore, case-based data submitted to TESSy have been included for countries for which the cumulative number of cases with complete location information (‘place of residence’ and/or ‘place of infection’) is at least 80% of the cumulative number of cases collected by epidemic intelligence and which have submitted data up to week ending 7 August 2022. For other countries, weekly subnational data are collected by epidemic intelligence. These data have been used to estimate two-week notification rates, resulting in a time-series that is therefore less smooth and may cover a shorter duration than those based on daily data.
Given the percentage completeness thresholds applied, the absolute notification rates shown may underestimate the true reported rates, but we assume that relative trends over time remain valid.
Definition of trends
14-day (2-week) notification rates for cases per 100 000 and deaths per 1 000 000 population. Trend for week W compares rate on week W with that on week W-1. Countries with low rates (cases: <10, deaths: <5) or which do not meet the criteria below are classified as stable trend. Increasing/decreasing trend: relative rate change (cases: >10%, deaths: >10%) OR absolute rate change (cases: >10, deaths: >5).
Testing rate per 100 000 population. Trend for week W compares rate on week W with that on week W-1. Stable: relative change =<10% or absolute rate change =<50. Increase/decrease: relative rate change >10% and absolute rate change >50.
Positivity (%) = number of confirmed cases/number of tests done per week. Trend for week W compares positivity on week W with that on week W-1. Stable: relative change =<10% or absolute change =<0.5 percentage points. Increase/decrease: relative positivity change >10% and absolute positivity change >0.5 percentage points.
Hospital or ICU admission rate: Trend for week W compares the admission rate per 100 000 population on week W with that on week W-1. Countries with low rates (<5% of the maximum weekly rate during the pandemic) or which do not meet the criteria below are classified as stable trend. Increasing/decreasing trend: relative rate change >10%
Hospital or ICU occupancy. Trend for day D compares mean 7-day mean occupancy rate per 100 000 popultion on day D with that on day D-7. Countries with low occupancy (<5% of the maximum 7-day rate during the pandemic) or which do not meet the criteria below are classified as stable trend. Increasing/decreasing trend: relative rate change >10%.
Thresholds and country classification
ECDC’s weekly epidemiological score is derived from a combination of the absolute value and trend of intensity indicators (test positivity and total case notification rates) and severity indicators (case rates among people aged 65 years and older, hospital or ICU admissions or occupancy and death rates). The final score between one and 10 is split evenly into quintiles to produce the categories used. A higher score indicates an epidemiological situation of greater concern. The method for the classification system, including thresholds for individual indicators, is described in Annex 2 of the 15th update of ECDC’s Rapid Rapid Assessment for COVID-19.
A list of country-specific data disclaimers can be found in the ‘Country disclaimers’ section of the ECDC COVID-19 dashboard.
ECDC’s legal notice and disclaimer can be found at https://www.ecdc.europa.eu/en/legal-notice.
No national data on cases and deaths were collected for week 2021-51 by ECDC Epidemic Intelligence. The number of new cases and deaths for this week were estimated as 50% of the total for the two weeks to 2021-52 for countries in which reliable data were not available in TESSy. This includes all countries outside the EU/EEA and some EU/EEA countries for cases (Austria and Croatia) and deaths (Austria, Croatia, Denmark, Iceland, Malta and Norway).
In week 2021-33, ECDC changed the definition of a stable trend for hospital indicators. Previously all values below 10% of the historical peak observed in each country were considered stable. This threshold has been lowered to 5% to make it more sensitive to changes when there are low levels of activity.
ECDC produces two weekly COVID-19 surveillance outputs (the COVID-19 country overview and the COVID-19 surveillance report) using data from a range of sources. The data behind most of the figures in the COVID-19 country overview are available for download in open data formats on ECDC’s website.
ECDC’s weekly epidemiological score is derived from a combination of the absolute value and trend of intensity indicators (test positivity and total case notification rates) and severity indicators (case rates among people aged 65 years and older, hospital or ICU admissions or occupancy and death rates). The final score between one and 10 is split evenly into quintiles to produce the categories used. A higher score indicates an epidemiological situation of greater concern. The method is described in Annex 2 of the 15th update of ECDC’s Risk Assessment for COVID-19.
The joint ECDC-WHO Europe COVID-19 surveillance bulletin is published every Friday, comprising an overview of data reported to TESSy by countries in the WHO European Region and an interactive web application presenting country-level data.
Additional weekly surveillance bulletins relevant to the COVID-19 pandemic in Europe include EuroMOMO (estimates of all-cause mortality) and Flu News Europe (including primary care sentinel and hospital-based surveillance for respiratory disease), which are published every Thursday and Friday, respectively.
A list of current variants of concern and variants of interest for the EU/EEA is published on ECDC’s website. Data used in this report from the GISAID EpiCoV database were extracted on 8 August 2022. Please refer to ECDC’s Guidance for representative and targeted genomic SARS-CoV-2 monitoring for more information on recommended sequencing volumes.
ECDC COVID-19 Vaccine Tracker presents information on the uptake of COVID-19 vaccination in the EU/EEA.
Data displayed on country level figures show age-specific vaccine uptake aligned with key epidemiological indicators (age-specific case and death rates, as well as hospital/ICU occupancy and admissions due to COVID-19). Countries that have reported age-specific information to TESSy for COVID-19 cases, deaths and vaccine uptake are included. The pooled figure is an aggregation of the individual country-level data from the reporting countries. Pooled, all-age hospital/ICU occupancy and admissions data are not shown.