World Could Have Prevented COVID- 19 Catastrophe: Pandemic Panel
Last edited Wed May 12, 2021, 10:58 PM - Edit history (1)
Source: CTVNews
10 hrs ago. GENEVA, SWITZERLAND -- The catastrophic scale of the COVID-19 pandemic could have been prevented, an independent global panel concluded Wednesday, but a "toxic cocktail" of dithering and poor co-ordination meant the warning signs went unheeded. The Independent Panel for Pandemic Preparedness and Response said a series of bad decisions meant COVID-19 went on to kill at least 3.3 million people so far and devastate the global economy.
Institutions "failed to protect people" and science-denying leaders eroded public trust in health interventions, the IPPPR said in its long-awaited final report. Early responses to the outbreak detected in Wuhan, China in December 2019 "lacked urgency," with February 2020 a costly "lost month" as countries failed to heed the alarm, said the panel. To tackle the current pandemic, it called on the richest countries to donate a billion vaccine doses to the poorest. And the panel also called on the world's wealthiest nations to fund new organisations dedicated to preparing for the next pandemic.
'DELAY, HESITATION AND DENIAL' Requested by World Health Organization (WHO) member states last May, the report, "COVID-19: Make it the Last Pandemic", argued that the global alarm system needed overhauling to prevent a similar catastrophe. "We have identified failures at every stage and we do believe that it could have been possible to prevent this pandemic," panel co-chair and former Liberian president Ellen Johnson Sirleaf said. "We cannot simply point to one individual who is ultimately responsible," she said.
The report said the emergence of COVID-19 was characterised by a mixture of "some early and rapid action, but also by delay, hesitation, and denial. "Poor strategic choices, unwillingness to tackle inequalities and an unco-ordinated system created a toxic cocktail which allowed the pandemic to turn into a catastrophic human crisis." The threat of a pandemic had been overlooked and countries were woefully unprepared to deal with one, the report found...
Read more: https://www.ctvnews.ca/health/coronavirus/world-could-have-prevented-covid-19-catastrophe-pandemic-panel-1.5424550
According to the panel, on Jan. 22, 2020 the WHO could have declared the situation a Public Health Emergency of International Concern (PHEIC) -- the highest level of alarm. But it waited eight more days to do so.
But because of countries' relative inaction, "we might still have ended up in the same place," said Helen Clark, former New Zealand prime minister and the other chairwoman for the report. In March the WHO deemed the crisis a pandemic which prompted nations into action.
_______
- France24, 'COVID-19 Catastrophe Could Have Been Prevented Says Expert Panel,
https://www.france24.com/en/europe/20210512-covid-19-catastrophe-could-have-been-prevented-says-expert-panel
= new reply since forum marked as read
Let me think...... did the U.S. of A. have any "science denying leaders"?
Why yes, yes we did! Donald Dumpf was our science denying leader, although he was never much of a leader. He was more of a deflector than a leader. I hope one day the authorities deflect his fat ass right into a prison cell.
I'll show myself out. 
