Why is the world still being hit by wave after wave of Covid when we know how to stop it?
Death and illness from Covid-19 is steadily rising once again. In the last week of April, more than 93,000 people died – approaching the worst of the global second wave. How can this still be happening? How can some countries still be experiencing wave after wave of infection when we know how to prevent them?
For the past eight months, the Independent Panel for Pandemic Preparedness and Response has been rigorously reviewing the evidence of what happened to allow Covid-19 to take a firm grip – and why. The panel spoke to hundreds of experts and people on the frontline of the response, and conducted extensive original research and numerous literature reviews.
Our report, issued today, is firm but fair in its examination of how a series of failures led to the biggest health, social, and economic disaster in living memory. The time it took from the reporting of a cluster of cases of pneumonia of unknown origin at the end of December 2019 to the declaration of an international public health emergency was too long. February 2020 was also a “lost month” for containing the spread of the virus. Rapid and consistent actions from the outset could have made our world look very different today.
Our 28-country study of a range of national responses showed that there were national leaders who devalued science, denied Covid’s severity, delayed responses, and fostered distrust among citizens. This was in stark contrast to leaders who, through a consistent, whole-of-government approach kept citizens safe and contained the virus. They have shown what should have been done everywhere – and what can still be done.
Today we are faced with the virus and its variants racing through populations struggling with insufficient public health measures, and with the irrational, unequal, and slow pace of vaccine distribution and supply. The situation in India is of grave concern because of the terrible suffering, and because it demonstrates the serious threat Covid-19 still poses.
To end this pandemic, high-income countries with a vaccine pipeline for adequate coverage of their populations should, alongside their own scale-ups, immediately commit to providing the 92 low- and middle-income countries of Gavi’s Covax Advance Market Commitment with at least 1bn vaccine doses by no later than September 2021, reaching
more than 2bn doses by mid-2022.
The leading vaccine-producing countries and manufacturers should agree on voluntary licensing and technology transfers within the next three months. The World Trade Organization (WTO) and World Health Organization (WHO) should convene the major actors as soon as they can, and if they can’t agree, a waiver of intellectual property rights under the Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (Trips) should come into force.
Simultaneously, every national government must implement proven public health measures to stop the spread of the virus. The rollercoaster of patchy controls and premature lifting of restrictions is not working.
A new pathogen with pandemic potentialcould emerge at any time, and then there will be no excuse for a “wait and see” approach. There has to be investment in preparedness now, not when the next crisis hits.
The panel is proposing bold reforms to change the global pandemic prevention and response system to stop future disease outbreaks from becoming another global crisis.
The panel calls for the establishment of a new global health threats council, created by the UN general assembly and led by heads of state and government. It should secure political commitment to pandemic preparedness and response, and hold stakeholders to account.
More than that, we believe we must enhance national and global accountability and effective implementation through a pandemic framework convention, which should be negotiated and agreed within six months.
We recommend that the WHO establishes a new system for surveillance based on full transparency. The WHO should have explicit authority to publish information about potential pandemics without requiring permission from the governments concerned. The WHO should also be empowered to send experts to investigate pandemic threats in any country at the shortest possible notice.
The WHO must be strengthened and given more financial independence based on fully unearmarked resources and increased member state fees. Among other WHO reforms, the position of the director general should be restricted to a single seven-year term.
More funding is required. A new international pandemic financing facility would mobilise up to $10bn (£7bn) each year for preparedness, with the ability to disburse $50–$100bn at short notice in the event of a pandemic declaration.
The panel – 13 experts with knowledge in global health, politics and economics, and including three former government heads – did not set out to apportion blame or point fingers at any one country or institution. But everyone must now apply what we have learned to ensure the world never suffers this way again.
The shelves of storage rooms in the UN and national capitals are lined with largely ignored reports and reviews of previous global crises. This report can’t be shelved. It’s time to take on its serious recommendations to prepare the world to stop an outbreak from becoming a pandemic.
Helen Clark, former prime minister of New Zealand, and Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, former President of Liberia, are co-chairs of the Independent Panel for Pandemic Preparedness and Response
A new pathogen with pandemic potential could emerge at any time. There will be no excuse for a “wait and see” approach