Unfortunately, the novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19) is impacting some of the EMBARK communications and outreach as well, and I regret to inform you that today’s meeting with on NordicMappingAMR arranged by the Swedish Medical Products Agency where we would have presented and discussed EMBARK has been cancelled and postponed until after the summer.

Similarly, the workshop and seminar on monitoring of antibiotic resistance in the environment organized by Resistomap and others that was to take place in late April in Helsinki, and where EMBARK was going to be presented, has also been postponed until August.

Finally, the team is discussing how to best proceed with e.g. sampling strategies in the time of lockdowns and travel restrictions. We are still working on this, but at this point this only looks like it will delay portions of the program, and not have major impacts on the research activities. This analysis may of course change depending on how the COVID-19 outbreak develops.