The soaring number of Covid-19 cases in Europe is of "great concern", but the situation is still better than the peaks in April, according to the World Health Organization.
"Daily numbers of cases are up, hospital admissions are up," the WHO's regional director for Europe Hans Kluge told a press conference.
"Covid is now the fifth leading cause of deaths and the bar of a 1,000 deaths per day has now been reached."
But he said that "we are not" in the situation that Europe experienced in March and April.
"Although we record two to three times more cases per day compared to the April peak, we still observe five times less deaths, and the doubling time in hospital admissions is still two to three times longer," Mr Kluge said.
He said part of the increase could be traced to a higher level of testing among younger people, and the lower mortality could be explained by the virus spreading in younger, less vulnerable groups.
Mr Kluge said decisions on nationwide lockdown measures should also take into account factors like "mental health" and "domestic violence".
He also said countries should do everything in their "power to keep schools open", and develop policies for "at-risk children with special learning needs or health conditions".
Earlier today, the European Commission warned that EU governments are unprepared for the new surge of Covid-19 infections and recommended common measures to roll out vaccines should they become available.
European Commission Vice-President Margaritis Schinas admitted: "While the evolution of the pandemic is getting back to March levels, our state of preparedness is not."
He urged EU states to adopt a common strategy for the new phase of the pandemic and avoid the "cacophony" of different national measures that characterised the first months in the pandemic on the continent.
With new cases hitting about 100,000 daily, Europe has by a wide margin overtaken the United States, where more than 51,000 infections are reported on average every day.
The Commission also called on EU governments to prepare for the possible distribution of vaccines that may need to be stored at extremely low temperature.
Meanwhile, the European Parliament will hold next week's session by video conference as a precaution against coronavirus, its president said, despite France's demand that it return to Strasbourg.
