China on Tuesday defended its early actions taken to fight the COVID-19 outbreak, saying that it immediately notified the World Health Organization and took "the most comprehensive, thorough, strict prevention and control measures".
The independent panel also notes that WHO and China acted slowly to the Covid-19 outbreak. It questions the global health body for not declaring the pandemic earlier.
WHO Failed to Use Word Pandemic Until March 11, China Acted Too Slow: COVID Panel
On 1/19/21 at 12:50 PM EST
The World Health Organization failed to label COVID-19 a pandemic between January and March 2020, and that helped to spread the novel coronavirus after China lost opportunities to inform other countries of the outbreak, suggests a new U.N. panel report.
A panel of health experts led by former Liberian President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf and former New Zealand Prime Minister Helen Clark released a report Monday that highlights slow responses to COVID-19 in early 2020. While the WHO waits to see if President-elect Joe Biden will reverse Washington s decision to leave the U.N. health agency, experts say it was instrumental in slowing response efforts. The panel said WHO experts argued from January 22 until March 11 before finally describing the emerging pandemic as an international emergency. This failure to label COVID-19 a pandemic slowed responses globally, the report s
The COVID-19 pandemic could be the catalyst for much-needed reform of the World Health Organization just as the Chernobyl nuclear disaster in 1986 forced urgent changes at the U.N. nuclear agency, an independent review panel said on Tuesday.