EU coordination needed to improve Covid testing, Dutch PM says

More coordination is needed between the 27 European Union member states to improve Covid-19 testing, Prime Minister Mark Rutte said to NOS. The European leaders agreed to look into this.

The first goal is to see if it is possible to use each other's tests, so that someone tested in Prague does not have to be re-tested in the Netherlands, for example.

But that will mean making sure all member states have reliable tests. "In the Netherlands we have high-quality PCR tests, but not all countries have the yet," Rutte said.

Rutte also wants to make EU-wide agreements on quarantine. "Now you have to quarantine for 14 days in one country, ten days in another, and only seven elsewhere. There must be more unity in that," he said.

But he added that this is not a political decision. "The Van Dissels of the EU must agree on that," he said, referring to Jaap van Dissel who is in charge of infectious disease at the Dutch public health institute RIVM.