Coronavirus pandemic review panel critical of delays by China and WHO, seeking ‘global reset’
- Chinese officials could have applied public health measures more forcefully in January, says group of independent experts
- The panel called the global pandemic alert system ‘not fit for purpose’, saying the WHO should have declared an international emergency earlier
An independent panel said on Monday that Chinese officials could have applied public health measures more forcefully in January to curb the initial Covid-19 outbreak, and criticised the World Health Organization (WHO) for not declaring an international emergency until January 30.
The experts reviewing the global handling of the pandemic, led by former New Zealand prime minister Helen Clark and former Liberian president Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, called for reforms to the Geneva-based United Nations agency.
Their interim report was published hours after the WHO’s top emergency expert, Mike Ryan, said that global deaths from Covid-19 were expected to top 100,000 per week “very soon”.
“What is clear to the panel is that public health measures could have been applied more forcefully by local and national health authorities in China in January,” the report said, referring to the initial outbreak of the new disease in the central city of Wuhan, in Hubei province.
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As evidence emerged of human-to-human transmission, “in far too many countries, this signal was ignored”, it added.