Independent WHO Panel Outlines Pandemic Failures
Health care workers at the Wuhan Red Cross Hospital. Source.
The Independent Panel for Pandemic Preparedness and Response, which was established by the World Health Organization (WHO), released their second interim report in early January, outlining the myriad of things that went wrong during the response to the COVID-19 pandemic. The 34-page report is best summarized from a line that stated “We have failed in our collective capacity to come together in solidarity to create a protective web of human security.”
The panel was set up in July 2020 after criticisms from the United States, Japan and other member nations concerning the WHO’s handling of the pandemic. While the investigation is still ongoing, the findings of this interim report emphasize the need for “fundamental and systemic change” from local communities all the way up to international groups like the WHO itself. The five main points of the report were that (1) public health measures need to be applied widely and comprehensively; (2) the pandemic response has deepened inequalities within and between nations; (3) the global pandemic alert system is outdated; (4) there has been a failure amongst nations to take threats of pandemic seriously; and (5) the WHO has been underpowered to do its job.
The goal of the panel is not to place blame, but rather to reset and revitalize the global health system to be functional enough to prevent another pandemic in the future. Contributing factors like not declaring the pandemic as such until January 30, after 10,000 cases had already been reported worldwide, is one point of tension signaling issues with the WHO. Some speculate the WHO’s hesitancy came from the Chinese government’s effective lobbying, since the Chinese had hoped to keep information about the coronavirus quiet and handle the issue internally. China’s involvement or lack thereof with the WHO in the beginning of the pandemic is one of the questions that became a catalyst for this independent investigation.
Beyond the five main points, the report also highlights a divisive global environment as a cause of the inadequate responses worldwide to COVID-19. The term, “infodemic,” was used in the report to describe the vast amount of information available about the pandemic, truthful and not, that could have led to pressured policy decisions and disruptive political rhetoric. This infodemic, mixed with what the United Nations Secretary General called, “the highest geopolitical tensions in this century,” created a kind of perfect storm for the virus to spread without contest across the globe. Additionally, the pandemic had a way of exacerbating any problem that existed previously, both internal to countries and internationally. For example, the Trump Administration had previous issues with China concerning intellectual property and trade in 2018, and with the introduction of COVID-19 to the world stage, tensions continued to rise as the Trump administration and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo repeatedly used verbiage like the “China virus,” and blamed China for COVID-19’s spread.
As the panel reflected on the past and looks to the future, the recommendation was that widespread and comprehensive health measures be put in place to slow the spread of the virus, this means realizing things like mask-wearing, hand-washing, physical distancing, restrictions on travel and gathering, as well as contact tracing and testing. According to the independent panel, Implementing these health measures earlier could have saved hundreds if not thousands of lives. Internationally, the panel called for systemic changes in how the WHO functions in order to be effective, beyond updating the pandemic alert system and granting more power to the WHO, the report is not descriptive about these changes.
Because the WHO has limited power, and no formal way to sanction or punish member states, China or any other member states cannot be punished for their (in)actions related to COVID-19. It will be up to individual member states to seek retribution if they so choose, based on the lack of power vested in supranational organizations like the United Nations and the WHO. Rather than punish, the goal of this panel is to understand the faults in our global health apparatus. The report foreshadows the lasting effects of the great inequalities that exist globally, and predicts wealthy countries will get the pandemic under control through vaccinations long before any developing nations will. COVID-19 knows no borders, therefore if we hope to end this pandemic the countries of the world must cooperate to not only reform organizations like the WHO to prevent future outbreaks, but also do their part in implementing adequate health measures at home and abroad to end this global pandemic.