COVID-19 response was 'sequence of failures': WHO's independent evaluation panel

COVID-19 response was a world sequence of failures, an interim report composed by the WHO’s unbiased evaluation panel stated. The document criticised the public well-being leaders and the government worldwide for ineffectively handling the coronavirus pandemic, citing a lack of planning and inadequate response, including the failure to adopt accurate measures. In a report compiled by WHO’s Independent Panel for Pandemic Preparedness and Response, the health organisation said: "We have failed in our collective capacity to come together in solidarity to create a protective web of human security. The worst of the pandemic and its impact are yet to come as we write at the beginning of January 2021". 

Urging the world leaders to gather a renewed resolve, be more prepared, more secure, more just, more equitable and more resilient for the pandemic threats ahead, the committee stressed that UN Secretary-General observed geopolitical tensions that detracted the leaders from multilateral and coordinated response to the pandemic. "The Independent Panel for Pandemic Preparedness and Response is painfully aware that the world was not prepared for the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic," the panel asserted in the report. It further warned that the respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) pandemic is continuing to evolve with many countries facing their most challenging period yet in their response to COVID-19. 

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[Source: WHO interim report]

[Source: WHO interim report]

Panel calls pandemic 'Wholesale of failure'

Stressing that the countries needed to ramp up techniques such as early case detection, travel ban, contact tracing and isolation, the panel said that the failure to apply such measures is continuing to result in an "unacceptable toll of death, illness, and transmission". Furthermore, the report condemned the deepened inequalities for the vaccines between the nations as it said: "The full potential of vaccines cannot be realized if narrow national interests and economic power determine who gets access". It added, that the vulnerable and marginalised people in a number of countries have been left without access to health care and immunisation. The report urged leaders for strengthening preparedness and response, adding that there has been "a wholesale failure to take seriously the existential risk posed by pandemic threat". 

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