Covid 19 coronavirus: Response was a global series of failures, WHO-established panel says 19 Jan, 2021 01:47 AM 6 minutes to read Medical staff in protective outfit wait for patients in Wuhan, January 2020. Photo / Getty Images New York Times By: Selam Gebrekidan and Matt Apuzzo An interim report is both a bleak recounting of deadly missteps and an early blueprint for repairs: "We have failed in our collective capacity." Laying bare a yearlong cascade of failures, a World Health Organisation panel recounts in a damning report how governments and public health organisations worldwide responded slowly and ineffectively to the coronavirus, despite years of warnings. The interim report, an early blueprint for reform, describes the faulty assumptions, ineffective planning and sluggish responses — including missteps by the WHO itself — that helped fuel a pandemic that has killed more than 2 million people.