Why the world failed to stop COVID-19

The World Health Organization (WHO) was overly cautious in communicating the risks of COVID-19 early last year, according to the first major investigation into the response to the global pandemic. If he had been bolder and the nations had listened to his advice, the pandemic could have been reduced, say the authors of the report.

Last year, during the World Health Assembly annual, countries have required that the WHO will start an independent review of the course of the COVID-19 crisis, in order to learn lessons for the future. The resulting report, released on May 12, was prepared by a group of 13 global health experts appointed in part by the WHO, but independent of it.

In-depth research published in the scientific journal Nature identifies February 2020 What the month when, in a parallel universe, the devastating cost of the pandemic could have been avoided if countries had acted quickly to limit the spread of the virus.

In addition, it lists concrete actions that could help avoid a similar fate in case another deadly pathogen emerges, and make a plan how vaccines can reach low and middle income countries as soon as possible, to end the current crisis. “The reality is that we are always in the middle of it all”, Explain Joanne Liu, panel member and specialist in health emergencies from the mcgill university in Montreal, Canada.

Some researchers say that the group’s suggestions on how to strengthen WHO are too vague. But the panel succeeds in making ambitious recommendations, including the creation of a council of world leaders dedicated to the fight against pandemics ”, of Stephen Morrison, director of global health policy at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington DC. “They are trying to take advantage of a time that everyone knows will pass fairly quickly,” he warns.

A bolder WHO

At the beginning of last year, the WHO should have raised its highest alarm, a “public health emergency of international concern”, O ESPII, about a week before what he did on January 30, the independent committee concluded in a preliminary report.

But in his latest summary of the investigation, The panel puts more emphasis on what happened between that alarm and when the WHO called the crisis a pandemic on March 11. Unlike December 2019 and January 2020, In February, the danger of the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus spreading around the world was well known and its cost could have been avoided through national containment strategies. “It is very evident that February 2020 was a lost month “, read the report.

A handful of Asian countries acted quickly in February last year to fight COVID-19, including the full testing facility for SARS-CoV-2 and follow-up of people who have tested positive. “But the rest of the world remained in their hands ”, affirms Liu. She and her colleagues assessed how WHO communicated the risks in February 2020 and decided that The agency’s careful assessment of incomplete evidence can help explain why many countries have not taken action.

“When it became clear that countries that have used masks they were doing better than those who were not – he continues – WHO could have said that although we do not have all the data, we should apply the precautionary principle and recommend masks ”. Likewise, the report states that theGovernments could have taken the SARS-CoV-2 danger more seriously if the WHO had described the outbreak as a “pandemic” earlier, although the term is not defined in agency protocols for managing health emergencies.

Immediately after the publication of the report, the CEO of the WHO, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, announced that he would consider the criticisms and the proposals of the inquiry, as well as two other reports expected in the coming weeks, and will discuss the reforms with all the countries that make up the WHO.

Global health experts have long feared that the WHO face serious limitations to trigger actions. It does not have the legal power to enforce recommendations and demand information. Yes it does everything possible to criticize the actions of a government for being chronically underfunded and dependent on donations from its member countries and territories.

Therefore, group recommends a higher budget for the agency, saying all countries with an outbreak should allow WHO officials access to sites germs on short notice, a blow to the weeks of negotiation necessary for the first visit to the WHO in Wuhan, China, in February.

Jennifer Nuzzo, epidemiologist Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland, says These potential changes would be nice, but they do not fully address the issues mentioned in the report. For example, countries should agree to reform regulations dictating WHO protocols so that it has the power to declare a pandemic. Currently, you can only declare a USPPI. Nuzzo He says, “WHO is exactly what we think it is.”

Prevention of future pandemics

Among the strongest recommendations of the report, we find the formation of an organization outside WHO, a World Health Threats Council, to hold countries accountable for pandemic control. The council would include the presidents and prime ministers of various high, middle and low income countries, and its role would be to warn governments if they do not prepare for or respond to health emergencies, based on the advice of scientific agencies.

It might be particularly powerful if implemented in conjunction with a pandemic treaty currently promoted by European countries, in which governments are committed to strengthening their responses. “It’s not a bad idea,” he says. Morrison, “But I don’t know if all of this is feasible in our deeply divided nationalist world. “

For such a council to exist, a large and diverse number of governments will have to pressure the United Nations to adopt it. But Morrison he says that It’s quite unlikely that nations that tend to be suspicious of news support a group designed to push them towards transparency. However, Liu he says that the panel points high, equalize the stakes to avoid another crisis of this magnitude. “By 2025, we forecast losses of $ 22 trillion,” he said. And he adds: “This pandemic has paralyzed the planet for 18 months, when was the last time something like this happened?”

Liu and his colleagues they will present the recommendations to world leaders at the World Health Summit next week and at the World Health Assembly in late May. Your goal is find countries willing to put forward ideas so that they become politicians.

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