Thread by @TelGlobalHealth

🛑 The worst ravages of the Covid-19 pandemic could have been avoided had the world not “lost” a month at the start of the crisis to indecision and complancancy, a major new report by @TheIndPanel has found

.@TheIndPanel has spent the past eight months reviewing the evidence around how Covid-19 became a pandemic, alongside the global and national responses

It highlighted 13 mistakes that plunged the world into the coronavirus crisis
telegraph.co.uk/global-health/…

The independent 86-page report was commissioned last May by the @who at the behest of member states and calls for radical reform, including a shift towards acting early on the “precautionary principle”, rather than waiting for proof of an emerging threat

It concludes that had the world acted a month sooner, Covid-19 may have been contained and the pandemic prevented

However, a number of factors were to blame for this delay

Chief among them was the @who’s ability to act

The report describes the WHO as being “underpowered and underfunded” and states that the body was hamstrung by conservative international regulations, preventing it from acting “immediately and independently” with respect to China

And even when the WHO did declare an international health emergency in January 2020, many countries were slow to act

“Most countries chose to ‘wait and see’, rather than take firmer measures that could have contained the virus,” said @HelenClarkNZ, co-chair of the Panel

Among the 13 mistakes that turned a small outbreak into a devastating pandemic, the report pointed to factors including complacency, a slow global alert system as well as geopolitical squabbles
telegraph.co.uk/global-health/…

“Covid-19 is the 21st century’s Chernobyl moment,” says the report. “The system as it stands now is clearly unfit to prevent another novel and highly infectious pathogen, which could emerge at any time, from developing into a pandemic”

On publishing its findings, the @TheIndPanel recommended that a new Global Health Threats Council, led by heads of state rather than officials, be created to sit above WHO within the orbit of the United Nations

The new body would be vested with legal powers – cemented via a new international Pandemic Framework Convention – and would push countries to act quicker when the next threat emerges

@sneweyy and @PaulNuki have more details here
telegraph.co.uk/global-health/…