Virus tragedy 'could have been prevented'

GENEVA • The catastrophic scale of the Covid-19 pandemic could have been prevented, an independent global panel concluded yesterday, 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 last year a costly "lost month" as countries failed to heed the alarm, said the panel.

To tackle Covid-19, it called on the richest countries to donate a billion vaccine doses to the poorest, as well as fund new organisations dedicated to preparing for the next pandemic.

The report was requested by World Health Organisation (WHO) member states last May.

The panel was chaired by former New Zealand prime minister Helen Clark and former Liberian president Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, a 2011 Nobel Peace laureate.

The report, titled Covid-19: Make It The Last Pandemic, argued that the global alarm system needed overhauling to prevent a similar catastrophe.

"The situation we find ourselves in today could have been prevented," Ms Sirleaf told reporters.

"It is due to a myriad of failures, gaps and delays in preparedness and response."

The report said the emergence of Covid-19 was characterised by a mixture of "some early and rapid action, but also by delay, hesitation, and denial".

"Poor strategic choices, unwillingness to tackle inequalities and an uncoordinated system created a toxic cocktail which allowed the pandemic to turn into a catastrophic human crisis."

The threat of a pandemic had been overlooked and countries were woefully unprepared to deal with one, the report found.

The panel did not spare the WHO, saying it could have declared the situation a public health emergency of international concern - its highest level of alarm - on Jan 22 last year. But it waited eight more days before doing so.

Nevertheless, given countries' relative inaction, "we might still have ended up in the same place", said Ms Clark.

It was only in March last year, after the WHO described it as a pandemic - a term that is not officially part of its alert system - that countries were jolted into action.

Rich, well-vaccinated countries should provide the 92 poorest territories in the Covax scheme with at least one billion vaccine doses by Sept 1, and more than two billion by mid-2022, the panel said.

The Group of Seven industrialised nations should pay 60 per cent of the US$19 billion (S$25.2 billion) required to fund vaccines, diagnostics and therapeutics via the WHO's Access to Covid-19 Tools Accelerator programme this year, it added. Fellow Group of 20 nations and others should provide the rest.

AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE