Ten countries in the 27-member European Union face a Covid situation of “very high concern”, the bloc's diseases agency said, warning that the pandemic was worsening across the continent.

“The overall epidemiological situation [...] was characterised by a high and rapidly increasing overall case notification rate and a low but slowly increasing death rate,” the European Centre for Disease Control said.

“Case notification rates, death rates, and hospital and ICU admissions are all forecast to increase over the next two weeks.”

In its latest weekly risk assessment, the agency listed 10 EU countries in its highest category of concern — Belgium, Bulgaria, Croatia, Czech Republic, Estonia, Greece, Hungary, Netherlands, Poland and Slovenia.