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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 coordination meant the warning signs went unheeded.
The Independent Panel for Pandemic Preparedness and Response (IPPPR) 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.
UK to Set Up Inquiry Into Government’s Handling of CCP Virus Pandemic
An inquiry into the government’s handling of the CCP virus pandemic will begin in spring 2022, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson has confirmed.
Speaking in Parliament on Wednesday, Johnson said the government will set up an independent public inquiry that will have “full powers under the Inquiries Act of 2005, including the ability to compel the production of all relevant materials, and take oral evidence in public, under oath.”
Johnson told MPs that the Duchy of Lancaster Michael Gove had spoken to the first ministers and deputy first ministers of the devolved nations and that the government would consult the devolved administrations before finalising the scope and detailed arrangements of the inquiry.
AIDS Healthcare Foundation: AHF: Ten Ways WHO Catastrophically Failed the World
With the upcoming World Health Assembly at the end of May, and indications that the World Health Organization (WHO) director-general plans to seek a second term in office, AIDS Healthcare Foundation (AHF), the world s largest provider of HIV/AIDS care globally, calls on the United Nations Member States to consider and address the many ways in which the WHO did not measure up to the task of protecting the world from COVID-19. It is now fourteen months since the WHO declared COVID-19 a pandemic, and the world was thrown into chaos. Vaccinations are ramping up, but much too slowly in many parts of the world and countries like India are on fire, said AHF President Michael Weinstein. Coordinated international efforts to control COVID-19 have been virtually non-existent, raising the question-why was the world so unprepared for this pandemic? And more importantly, why did the institution with the primary
2021/05/07 10:21 French Senate. French Senate. (CNA photo) TAIPEI (Taiwan News) France s Senate unanimously passed a resolution on Thursday (May 6) that called for Taiwan s participation in the World Health Organization (WHO) and three other major international organizations. The Senate passed the resolution, Taiwan s participation in international organizations, with a vote of 304 to 0, and 19 abstentions. The resolution called for the participation of Taiwan in the WHO, International Criminal Police Organization (Interpol), International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO), and the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). The resolution was proposed by French senators Joel Guerriau and Alain Richard, both of whom are members of the France-Taiwan Inter-Parliamentary Amity Association. Richard recently received a letter from Chinese Ambassador to France Lu Shaye (盧沙野) calli