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GENEVA (AP) – A panel of experts commissioned by the World Health Organization criticized China and other countries for failing to act to stem the initial coronavirus outbreak sooner and questioned whether the he United Nations health agency should have called it a pandemic earlier.
In a report released to the media on Monday, the panel led by former Liberian President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf and former New Zealand Prime Minister Helen Clark said there were “missed opportunities” to adopt health measures public base as soon as possible.
“What is clear to the panel of experts is that the public health measures could have been applied more forcefully by local and national health authorities in China in January,” he said.
Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Hua Chunying questioned whether China has reacted too slowly.
“As the first country to sound the global alarm against the epidemic, China has taken immediate and decisive decisions,” she said, noting that Wuhan – where the first human cases were identified – was locked within three weeks of the onset of the outbreak.
“All countries, not only China, but also US, UK, Japan or whatever country should all try to do better,” Hua said.
An Associated Press investigation In June, the WHO repeatedly praised China in public, while officials privately complained that Chinese authorities were not sharing critical epidemic information with them, including the genetic sequence of the new virus. History has noted that the WHO has no enforcement powers.
During a press briefing on Tuesday, Johnson Sirleaf said it was up to countries whether they want to review the WHO to give it more power to eradicate epidemics, saying the organization is also constrained by its lack of funding.
“The bottom line is that the WHO has no power to enforce anything,” she said. “All he can do is ask to be invited.”
Last week, an international team of WHO-led scientists arrived in Wuhan to research the animal origins of the pandemic after months of political wrangling over China’s approval for the investigation.
The panel also cited evidence of COVID-19 cases in other countries in late January, saying public health containment measures should have been put in place immediately in any country with a probable case, adding: “This was not. ”
Experts also wondered why the WHO hadn’t declared a global public health emergency earlier – its highest warning for outbreaks. The United Nations health agency convened its emergency committee on January 22, but only called the emerging pandemic an international emergency a week later.
“Another question is whether it would have helped if the WHO had used the word pandemic earlier than it did,” the panel said.
The WHO did not describe the COVID-19 outbreak as a pandemic until March 11, weeks after the virus started causing explosive outbreaks in many continents, meeting the WHO definition of an influenza pandemic.
As the coronavirus began to spread across the world, top WHO experts disputed how infectious the virus is, saying it is not as contagious as the flu and people without symptoms won’t rarely spread the virus. Scientists have since concluded that COVID-19 spreads even faster than the flu, and that a significant proportion of the spread is from people who do not appear to be sick.
Over the past year, WHO has come under heavy criticism for its handling of the response to COVID-19. US President Donald Trump criticized the United Nations health agency for its “collusion” with China to cover up the extent of the initial outbreak before halting US funding for the WHO and pulling the country out of it. ‘organization.
The United Nations health agency bowed to international pressure at the annual meeting of its member states last spring by creating the Independent Panel for Pandemic Preparedness and Response. The WHO chief has appointed Johnson Sirleaf and Clark – both of whom have previous ties to the UN agency – to lead the team, whose work is funded by the WHO.
Although the panel concluded that “many countries have taken minimal measures to prevent the spread (of COVID-19) internally and internationally,” it did not name specific countries. He also declined to call the WHO for its failure to criticize countries more harshly. for their missteps instead of commending countries for their response efforts.
Last month, the author of a withdrawn WHO report on Italy’s pandemic response said he warned his bosses in May that people could die and the agency could suffer reputational damage “Catastrophic” if it allowed political concerns to delete the document, according to emails obtained by the PA.
To date, the pandemic has killed more than 2 million people around the world.
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AP medical editor Maria Cheng reported from Toronto. Ken Moritsugu in Beijing contributed to this report.
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Follow all of AP’s pandemic coverage at https://apnews.com/hub/coronavirus-pandemic, https://apnews.com/hub/coronavirus-vaccine and https://apnews.com/UnderstandingtheOutbreak
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