Coronavirus Covid 19: Expert Attacks WHO After Lockdown Confusion

A leading Covid-19 expert has criticized the World Health Organization for its handling of the pandemic, suggesting that New Zealand should look to the East for direction.

The criticism of Professor Michael Baker comes as public comments about the closures of Dr. David Nabarro, the WHO special envoy for Covid-19, have caused some confusion.

In an interview with British magazine Spectator this month, Nabarro said he believed the lockdowns should only be used to buy authorities time to establish effective public health systems.

But that blanket statement didn’t apply to New Zealand’s unique case, experts here have noted.

And this morning, WHO spokeswoman Dr. Margaret Harris confronted RNZ to clarify messages about the lockdowns, emphasizing that countries must “do it all” rather than relying solely on the lockdowns.

In any event, Baker, an epidemiologist at the University of Otago who has staunchly advocated New Zealand’s successful elimination strategy, said the pandemic had demonstrated the need to be “very cautious” when acting on the advice of foreign organizations.

Western agencies like the WHO, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the European Center for Disease Prevention and Control, which New Zealand had traditionally sought out, had “disappointed us all. “for the Covid-19.

“Their Covid-19 risk assessments and proposed responses have been absent or are often incorrect.”

Baker argued that the WHO was late to formally declare a pandemic, and its staff had at times advised against closing borders and mass masking.

“These are exactly the measures that have saved New Zealand and many other countries from the worst effects of the pandemic,” he said.

“At the heart of this problem, WHO never seemed to understand the value of the phase-out approach that New Zealand, most Australian states and much of East and South-East Asia are successfully applying.”

The use of the removal approach of tight border management and “short and hard” locks differed from the long locks used in Europe and North America, which could only suppress the virus.

“Part of the problem is that WHO and the other major organizations that we have traditionally relied on for advice are based in Europe and North America and have tended to view the pandemic from their own regional and often dysfunctional perspective,” he said .

“New Zealand is now looking to the East and is learning from countries like Taiwan that have mounted a particularly successful pandemic response that has not only protected public health but also ensured a faster economic recovery.

“As we are seeing, our region can forge an independent and successful direction in response to a major global health challenge such as the current pandemic.”

Professor Michael Plank, a mathematician and modeler from Te Pūnaha Matatini and the University of Canterbury, said that as New Zealand was in a very different position than most other countries, our answer would sometimes be different.

But he noted that the WHO’s advice on the lockdowns was largely consistent with how New Zealand had used them, along with a host of other measures such as testing, contact tracing and quarantine systems.

“The advice from the WHO is that closed closures should be a last resort and should be targeted and used in combination with other measures,” he said.

“But if you know you’re going to need closure, it’s better to do it sooner rather than later.”

Another expert, Dr David Welch from the University of Auckland, said that one case in New Zealand’s rare state point was the man who tested positive for Covid-19 five days after leaving controlled isolation, likely as a result of touching the lid of a contaminated container.

“In most of the world where Covid is most prevalent, this type of transmission event would essentially make no difference in the size or trajectory of the outbreak and could be ignored,” he said.

“But in Aotearoa New Zealand, it could be the difference between zero community cases and a new community outbreak.

“So we need to be more aware in New Zealand of these rare events and adjust our response to account for them, while perhaps ignoring the more general measures that are recommended elsewhere.”