Comments by European Commission president, Ursula von der Leyen

  • Urges governments to step up response to the pandemic
  • Spike in virus infections is 'alarming'
  • Now is not the time to relax virus measures

Given how things have progressed, it is a fair assumption to say that the virus situation will remain rather serious throughout Europe during the winter.

There may be tighter restrictions being introduced now but it comes as a time when the second wave has already far outpaced the first wave of infections.

A likely scenario to consider is that if virus cases start to fall again and restrictions are eased, we could fall back into the same stop-start motion some time next year.