Considerations for implementing and adjusting public health and social measures in the context of COVID-19
Interim guidance - 30 March 2023
Overview
Public health and social measures have been implemented across the world to reduce SARS-CoV-2 transmission, morbidity, and mortality from COVID-19 and to prevent the overburdening of the health systems and other critical social functions.
Since the last update of this interim guidance, several significant developments have occurred, including increased global population-level immunity against SARS-CoV-2.
As the pandemic continues to evolve, PHSM should be regularly reviewed and adjusted based on ongoing situational assessments at the most local administrative level possible.
This document provides guidance to help Member States assess the severity of the COVID-19 situation and to implement PHSM at different resulting Situational Levels. This updated guidance eliminates the use of categorical transmission classifications with numeric cut-offs as a metric for adjusting PHSM. The guidance further shifts the focus of situational assessment to the dimensions of COVID-19 morbidity/mortality and health system impact (with the latter retained from the previous version). Consequently, the situational level matrix and the wording of each situational level have been updated to take into account these changes.
Previous versions
This version supersedes the following (now outdated) versions of this guidance:
