At least 3.4million lives could have been saved during the Covid-19 crisis, which has been labelled a ‘preventable pandemic’ in a scathing piece of research.
A lack of international leadership, an eight-day delay in declaring a global emergency and reluctance to impose travel restrictions are among the key findings by an independent report commissioned by the World Health Organisation.
Calling for wide-ranging reforms to the WHO and for an international council to be established to transform preparation and response, the report lays out bold measures to make the current global crisis the “last pandemic”.
“The situation we find ourselves in today could have been prevented,” panel co-chair Ellen Johnson Sirleaf said at the launch of the report.
“It is due to a myriad of failures, gaps and delays in preparedness and response.”
Here are the key errors that created a “toxic cocktail” for the spread of coronavirus.
Eight-day delay in declaring global emergency
Chinese authorities first confirmed they were treating dozens of cases of pneumonia sparked by an unknown cause in Wuhan on December 31, 2019.
At the time, there was no evidence the virus could be rapidly spread by humans, but the report suggests the World Health Organisation was slow to act as the disease gained momentum.
(Image: AFP via Getty Images)
“Clinicians in Wuhan acted quickly when they recognised individuals in a cluster of pneumonia cases that were not normal,” said Sirleaf, adding that the alert was quickly picked up by neighbouring countries and the media.
“This shows the benefit and speed of open-source reporting, but then the systems that were meant to validate and respond to this alert were too slow. The alert system does not operate with sufficient speed when faced with a fast-moving respiratory pathogen.”
The report suggests the World Health Organisation was “hindered” by regulations that need rethinking and should have declared a global health emergency by January 22 – eight days before it eventually did so.
On January 23, a 50-year-old woman suffering a fever, cough and sore throat arrived from Wuhan in the UK, before being confirmed as Britain’s first coronavirus case.
By the time a global emergency was declared, the virus has already spread to countries including Thailand and the US, with around 500 confirmed cases and 17 reported dead.
‘Lost month’ of February
Following the declaration, however, the report suggests too many countries were slow to act and tighten their borders, meaning February was a “lost month” in the fight against the virus.
“If travel restrictions had been imposed more quickly, more widely, again that would have been a serious inhibition on the rapid transmission of the disease,” said the panel’s co-chair Helen Clark, the former prime minister of New Zealand.
(Image: Getty Images)
New Zealand’s quick response to the virus was hailed as an early success story in the pandemic, with the nation currently reporting only 26 Covid deaths since the outbreak began.
On February 2, a man in the Philippines became the first person outside China to die of Covid-19. New Zealand banned entries to any foreigners coming from or through the country, while forcing nationals returning from there to isolate for 14 days.
The UK’s response was less severe. Between January and March 2020, Britain imposed quarantine measures on 273 people travelling from Wuhan, while asking travellers from “high-risk countries” including China, Iran and Northern Italy to voluntarily isolate for 14 days.
However, these self-isolation requirements were withdrawn on March 13 – 10 days before the UK went into lockdown.
The report adds: “Countries with the ambition to aggressively contain and stop the spread whenever and wherever it occurs have shown that this is possible.”
Reckless leaders ‘devalued science’
International leaders who “devalued science” have also been criticised by the study, which claims they “denied the potential impact of the pandemic, delayed comprehensive action, and allowed distrust to undermine efforts”.
Arguably the most high profile example was former US president Donald Trump, who was widely rebuked for his downplaying of and outright denial of the virus.
In January 2020, after the first Covid case in the US was confirmed, he said: “It’s one person coming in from China. We have it under control. It’s going to be just fine.”
The next month he boasted, “It’s going to disappear. One day – it’s like a miracle – it will disappear”, later prompting outcry for suggesting the virus could be combated by injecting bleach.
(Image: AFP via Getty Images)
The US currently has recorded 596,946 Covid deaths, the highest rate in the world, followed by Brazil on 425,711 deaths.
Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro infamously railed against other nation’s lockdown measures as the pandemic unfolded, saying of the virus: “It’s just a little flu or the sniffles.”
Speaking in late March 2020, he stood firm against calls for tougher measures, insisting: “Our lives have to go on. Jobs must be kept… We must, yes, get back to normal.”
The country’s slow vaccination rollout has since seen Bolsonaro’s regime accused of “homicidal negligence” by the Brazilian press.
Sceptical leaders from nations also including Tanzania and Turkmenistan – whose president suggested a herb could keep the virus at bay – were dubbed the ‘ostrich alliance’ for burying their heads in the sand.
‘Winner takes all’ battle for PPE
Many nations were unprepared for a pandemic and only spurred into action when “hospital ICU beds began to fill”, said Clark.
She added: “By then it was too late to avert the pandemic’s impact. What followed then was a winner takes all scramble for PPE and therapeutics.
“Globally, health workers were tested to their limits and the rates of infection, illness and death soared and continue to soar.”
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Last May, the Mirror told how doctors completely ran out of essential items of PPE while fighting on the NHS frontline.
One ICU doctor working at a London hospital said: “I have had to treat patients without a gown on because we have completely run out. Just my scrubs, with gloves and a mask.
“One member of staff has stopped coming to work because her mum has Type 2 diabetes and without PPE, she’s terrified she’ll infect her. I often find myself standing in front of a patient, knowing I’m not protected enough.”
A report by the Guardian also found that government stockpiles containing protective equipment for healthcare workers in the event of a pandemic fell in value by almost 40 per cent in the six years up to 2020.
‘Pandemic of inequality’
The panel’s experts warn that “Covid-19 has been a pandemic of inequality, exacerbated between and within countries”.
The crisis has been particularly devastating in impoverished nations like India, where tens of millions of residents have been plunged into poverty since the outbreak.
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Earlier this month, the UK announced it will send 1,000 more ventilators for use in India’s hospitals, amid crippling shortages in oxygen and vaccine supplies.
It is estimated that only about 26 million people have been fully vaccinated in the country – out of a population of 1.4 billion.
During a horrifying second wave, described as a “tsunami”, infected people have been wandering the streets looking for hospitals with open beds. Morgues have run out of stretchers and trees from parks are being used to burn bodies.
Amongst a number of proposed reforms, experts behind the report are now calling for a step up in global aid efforts, urging rich countries to provide one billion vaccines to poorer nations by September.