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Des Gorman on The AM Show. Credits: Video - The AM Show; Images - Getty Images
A local expert in health system planning says a new report looking into how COVID-19 became a pandemic is far too soft on the World Health Organization (WHO).
And he says New Zealand s success is at handling the pandemic mostly down to dumb, good luck , after following the WHO s mistaken advice.
The
COVID-19: Make It the Last Pandemic report, compiled by the Independent Panel for Pandemic Preparedness and Response co-chaired by former New Zealand Prime Minister Helen Clark, found a toxic cocktail of poor decision-making and a lack of global coordination was to blame.
Aditi TandonTribune News ServiceNew Delhi, May 12
The Independent Panel for Pandemic Preparedness and Response (IPPPR), which spent the last eight months reviewing evidence of the spread of Covid-19,
CCP Virus Pandemic Was ‘Preventable Disaster’ and ‘Terrible Wake-up Call’: WHO-Commissioned Panel
A panel of independent experts commissioned by the World Health Organization (WHO) has issued a scathing rebuke of the global reaction to COVID-19, calling the outbreak a “preventable disaster” and a “terrible wake-up call” that exposed weak links along the entire chain of pandemic preparation and response.
In a report issued Wednesday (pdf), the Independent Panel for Pandemic Preparedness and Response blamed countries worldwide for their sluggish response to the outbreak of the CCP (Chinese Communist Party) virus, saying most waited to see how the virus was spreading until it was too late to contain it, leading to catastrophic results.
Author Professor of International Health, Burnet Institute
The panel, co-chaired by former New Zealand prime minister Helen Clark and former Liberian president Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, criticises the World Health Organization (WHO) for its tardy actions during the first months of 2020.
The WHO was slow to warn of person-to-person transmission after it first received this information in Wuhan, China, in early January.
And it was slow to declare a public health emergency of international concern (PHEIC), which it did on January 30.
The WHO also opposed international travel restrictions that, if implemented earlier, might have slowed the international spread of the virus. By the time the PHEIC was declared, COVID-19 had spread to 18 countries outside China.