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In recent years, our perception of security – in healthcare in particular – has certainly changed. The idea that Europe and Western nations are safe from major epidemics and virus outbreaks has collapsed under the blows of the Covid-19 pandemic. Now the task of the new European institutions, the first to be elected after the pandemic period, is surely to give the member states new tools to improve their health standards and to prevent the Covid nightmare from happening again. In order to do so, however, certain principles cannot be abandoned and must guide health policies in the community sphere. Among these, the respect of citizens’ rights, privacy and freedom.
A DIFFERENT WORLD
What was presented to our eyes when on March 11 the WHO declared Covid-19 a global pandemic was a different world than the one we were used to knowing. Social distances, the inability to leave home and, in many cases, to work, have created problems and inequalities that are still being felt today. When an outbreak occurred in the Chinese city of Wuhan in December 2019, no one (not least because very few people knew about it) would have thought it would spread so widely. Already in January 2020, in fact, the first isolated cases appeared in some EU Member States, while at the end of February it was Italy that reported a significant increase in cases, especially in the northern regions. By the time the WHO declared the pandemic to be ‘worldwide’, all EU countries had cases within their borders that continued to increase in the following months. According to data available to the WHO as of May 2023, the Covid-19 pandemic had caused approximately 7 million deaths. In that same month, the World Health Organisation declared an end to the emergency. Of course, the cases have not disappeared and the contagions, carried by ever new variants, are still being kept under control.
THE EUROPEAN UNION’S RESPONSE
It should be noted that the European institutions have sought to return a unified response involving all Member States in the battle against Covid-19. In fact, in March 2020, after the WHO declarations, the leaders outlined four priorities to be followed in order to best guide the European response. The first priority was, of course, to try to limit the spread of the virus, through all those policies that have resonated so strongly, such as distancing and lockdowns. The focus was then on ensuring the supply of medical equipment, the tools needed to fight that battle. Similarly, research on therapies and vaccines was promoted, and policies were launched to support employment, businesses and the European economy.
EUROPEAN POLICIES WITH A VIEW TO RECOVERY
After the darkest period of the pandemic, we began to talk about recovery and post-Covid-19 support policies. In particular, the European institutions sought to continue the EU effort on several fronts. First on vaccine development, production and dissemination. Then there was work on testing and the mutual recognition of results between the various Member States – a fundamental element for the movement of people. This was followed by insistence on cross-border tracing of contagions and quarantine regulations, to be renewed as the pandemic progressed. Finally, there was a move towards the implementation of interoperable digital certificates such as the so called ‘global green pass’ promoted by the World Health Organisation. This is a subject we will go into in greater depth later, also in view of the position taken by Italy in its non-adherence to this system.
COMMON SENSE – NOT IDEOLOGY – IS NEEDED
After the pandemic period the European Union and its institutions, especially in the health field, cannot disregard certain principles that we have already expressed at the beginning of this article. Principles like the need to value respect for the rights and freedom of the individual. Healthcare in the aftermath of Covid-19 should renew itself in terms not only of greater efficiency (thus building on accumulated experience and identified shortcomings), but also of proximity and subsidiarity with respect to citizens. The health service must be oriented towards the individual and not only towards policies, data and statistics (be they medical or economic). Health, the rights and freedoms of the individual must go hand in hand, which is why the European Union must aim to protect the right to health and to the quality of life of its citizens without falling into ideological paradigms and conditioning that have already demonstrated their fallacy during the Covid-19 global pandemic. One principle must be clear here: the fundamental rights of the individual, including the right to health, cannot be shrouded in ideological conditioning. That is why the only policies that are really effective in this regard are those that aim to invest in quality and efficiency in public health. These are structural investments that can really make a difference in a challenge such as the one we have just passed. The experience of the pandemic years cannot be thrown to the wind by ideological conditioning, and it must necessarily be put to good use. Alongside investments, therefore, we also need to be prepared to face health threats that may also come from outside the borders of the European Union. The field to play on is certainly that of cooperation in the health and pharmacological fields, but always without losing sight of the fundamental rights of individuals and the prerogatives of each individual member country, which cannot be violated in the name of any ideology. Of course, in the medium and long term, attention must be focused on all those elements that can affect the health system, such as drug abuse and addictions in general, to the point of promoting sport and physical activity as the primary means of physical and mental wellbeing. In the short term, however, there is a need for clarity and transparency to finally shed light on all the mistakes that have been made in the handling of the Covid-19 pandemic, both on the EU front and within individual Member States. For example, it is necessary to accurately analyse the data and to arrive at a form of justice for all those citizens who suffered serious permanent damage after vaccination against Covid-19. This is an operation of civilisation, but also of responsibility on the part of those who took decisions without fully taking into account the rights and freedoms of citizens.
NO ROOM FOR THE GLOBAL GREEN PASS
In the same vein, there can be no room for the so-called ‘global green pass’ proposed by the World Health Organisation. This digital system was proposed by the WHO on 1 July 2023 to protect citizens around the world from future health threats. It is the digitisation (also in an extended form and with the collection of more data) of the old Yellow Card, which was used to certify vaccination for certain diseases; it originated in the Netherlands in 1933 and was adopted by the WHO in 1951. It is a global verification procedure for health documents, with a special focus on developing countries. An idea that builds on the agreement of 30 November 2022 between European Commissioner Kyriakides and WHO Director Tedros to strengthen strategic cooperation on global health issues. Along these lines, the Council on 27 June 2023 adopted a recommendation encouraging EU Member States to join the WHO system. It would, according to WHO assurances, be a tool that does not put privacy and personal health data at risk. Despite this, and it should be emphasised, adherence to the global green pass is voluntary for states. This is a perspective that Italy with the Meloni government has already decided not to follow, emphasising as early as February 2023 that it will not adopt the global green pass. This is in line with the idea that, on the subject of health, freedom and respect for individual rights should prevail, among which we can’t forget the security of one’s personal and health data. This is a subject that cannot fall out of the control of states, especially if it is not matched by a real policy for the development of health systems.