‘Covid-19 pandemic could have been avoided’: WHO
18:43
A group of experts commissioned by the World Health Organization to assess the response of the international community to the Covid-19 pandemic concluded that several mistakes were made in its initial phase. Their absence would allow the situation to be brought under control faster and save hundreds of thousands of human lives.
The report was prepared by a team led by two women – former New Zealand prime minister Helen Clark and former Liberian president and Nobel Peace Prize winner Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf. The experts' task was to assess how the WHO itself and the international community responded to the outbreak of the pandemic in early 2020. The report by the Clark and Johnson-Sirleaf team was very critical of the activities of the international community. It described the pandemic as "a catastrophe that could have been prevented."
"If the world reacted faster, millions of people would save their lives," its main thesis stated.
The document noted that in many places around the world the threat was neglected until the situation became very serious.
"February 2020 was the month of a missed opportunity to avoid a global pandemic. Too many countries adopted a strategy – let's wait and see what happens. Some started taking any action only when intensive care units began to lack beds,” Helen Clark said.
The WHO itself was also accused of neglecting and reacting too slowly. The pandemic warning system worked too slowly, and since the UN organization cannot order anything, even this late March announcement of a global pandemic alert was too mild, according to experts. That is why the authors of the report suggest taking measures to protect the world from future threats of this type.
