Europe must come together to confront Omicron

A multi-disciplinary team of over 30 scientists from all across Europe have joined forces to issue a statement to address the wave of the Omicron variant of SARS-CoV-2. The statement was published in the renowned British Medical Journal (BMJ) on January 11, 2022.

In their call to coordinated action, they warn that Omicron remains concerning even when headlines are suggesting that Omicron causes a milder form of COVID-19. Hence the experts call for immediate action, namely taking measures to reduce the number of infections, while protecting children and proceeding the vaccination efforts.

Authors

André Calero Valdez, RWTH Aachen University, Aachen, Germany

Emil N. Iftekhar, Max Planck Institute for Dynamics and Self-Organisation, Göttingen, Germany

Miquel Oliu-Barton, Paris-Dauphine University, Paris, France, and Bruegel, Brussels, Belgium

Robert Böhm, University of Vienna, Vienna, Austria, and University of Copenhagen, Copenhagen, Denmark

Sarah Cuschieri, Faculty of Medicine and Surgery, University of Malta, Msida, Malta

Thomas Czypionka, Institute for Advanced Studies Vienna, Vienna, Austria, and London School of Economics and Political Science, London, UK

Uga Dumpis, Pauls Stradins University Hospital, University of Latvia, Riga, Latvia

Giulia Giordano, University of Trento, Trento, Italy

Claudia Hanson, Karolinska Institute, Solna, Sweden

Zdenek Hel, University of Alabama at Birmingham, Birmingham, USA

Anna Helova, Sparkman Center for Global Health and Department of Health Policy and Organisation, School of Public Health, University of Alabama at Birmingham, Birmingham, USA

Ilona Kickbusch, Global Health Centre, Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies, Geneva, Switzerland

Peter Klimek, Medical University of Vienna, Vienna, Austria, and Complexity Science Hub Vienna, Vienna, Austria

Lilian Kojan, RWTH Aachen University, Aachen, Germany

Mirjam Kretzschmar, University Medical Center Utrecht, Utrecht, The Netherlands

Tyll Krueger, Wroclaw University of Science and Technology, Wroclaw, Poland

Jenny Krutzinna, University of Bergen, Bergen, Norway; Berit Lange, Helmholtz Center for Infection Research, Braunschweig, Germany

Jeffrey V Lazarus, Barcelona Institute for Global Health (ISGlobal), Hospital Clínic, University of Barcelona, Barcelona, Spain

Helena Machado, Institute for Social Sciences, University of Minho, Braga, Portugal

Martin McKee, London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, London, UK

Kai Nagel, TU Berlin, Berlin, Germany

Matjaž Perc, University of Maribor, Maribor, Slovenia, Department of Medical Research, China Medical University Hospital, China Medical University, Taichung, Taiwan

Elena Petelos, University of Crete, Heraklion, Greece, Maastricht University, Maastricht, The Netherlands

Nedyu Popivanov, Bulgarian Academy of Sciences and Sofia University, Sofia, Bulgaria

Bary Pradelski, CNRS, Grenoble, France, and Oxford-Man Institute, Oxford, UK

Barbara Prainsack, Paris-Dauphine University, Paris, France

Kay Schroeder, Zuyd University of Applied Sciences, Heerlen, The Netherlands

Sotirios Tsiodras, National and Kapodistrian University of Athens Medical School, Athens, Greece

Paul Wilmes, University of Luxembourg, Esch-sur-Alzette, Luxembourg

Guntram Wolff, Bruegel, Brussels, Belgium, and Université libre de Bruxelles, Brussels, Belgium

Citation

Europe must come together to confront omicron BMJ 2022; 376 :o90 doi:10.1136/bmj.o90