For this strategy to work, COVID-19 surveillance is paramount and needs to be substantially upscaled, alongside laboratory capacity, to cover the entire population in all geographic areas. Importantly, surveillance will continuously guide and revise the appropriate level of social distancing. If, for example, SARS-CoV-2 transmissibility decreases in the summer and rises in the autumn, surveillance indicators will reflect this, and social distancing will be calibrated to maintain a stable infection rate. Similarly, if COVID-19 cases flare up in a defined geographic area, additional targeted measures may be taken to bring the pandemic back under control.