A year later, WHO says early warning of COVID-19 fell on deaf ears

GENEVA: Almost a year after first describing COVID-19 as a pandemic, the World Health Organization (WHO) complained on Monday (March 8) that some did not heed its previous urgent warnings.

The WHO sounded its highest available alarm level on January 30, 2020, declaring a Public Health Emergency of International Concern (PHEIC).

But it was not until the word “pandemic”, which does not appear in the official international health alert system, was used on March 11 that many countries jumped into action.

WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said some countries were slow to realize the risks of coronavirus after the PHEIC statement, when, outside of China, there were fewer than 100 COVID-19 cases and no deaths.

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“One of the things we still need to understand is why some countries acted on those warnings, while others reacted more slowly,” he told a news conference.

“We continue to warn that the world had a small window of opportunity to prepare for and prevent a potential pandemic,” he insisted, adding that the description was finally implemented on March 11 after the number of affected countries and cases skyrocketed.

“But we must be clear that that was not the moment when we sounded the highest level of alarm.”

NEED FOR “HEARING AIDS”

Reflecting on why some states did not jump into action before the pandemic was categorized, WHO emergency director Michael Ryan said too many countries thought the problem would simply pass by.

Ryan said he fully understood that the public might not necessarily have reacted to PHEIC’s statement, but stressed that the 194 member countries of the WHO had agreed to that as the “trigger for collective action in response to containment.”

“We have to ask ourselves, yes, we may need to scream louder, but maybe some people need hearing aids.”

READ: What WHO experts on COVID-19 learned in Wuhan

Ryan said people who live in a valley when a dam bursts know their risk level and take action, while those higher up the slope don’t feel the urgency until the waters rise.

“Many people listened, many countries listened and took action,” he said at the briefing.

However, he added: “I am afraid that many countries thought they were on top of a mountain watching the waters rise to consume and overwhelm others.”

“But what not everyone realized was that the waters rose to consume them.”

“NO SQUANDER PROGRESS”

Nearly 2.6 million people are known to have died from COVID-19 since the outbreak emerged in China in December 2019, while more than 116 million cases have been recorded, according to a count from official sources compiled by AFP.

Tedros said the WHO’s goal was to help countries end the pandemic, including with the implementation of vaccines around the world.

READ: The second year of COVID-19 could be more difficult, says WHO chief emergency official

“We have come so far, we have suffered so much and we have lost so many. We cannot, we must not waste the progress we have made,” he emphasized.

Maria Van Kerkhove, the WHO technical leader on COVID-19, said the organization had made every effort to work with governments after the virus was detected in the Chinese city of Wuhan.

“We did our best to report the situation every day,” he said, on what was known about the virus and its dangers in the weeks leading up to calling it a pandemic.

“We followed that with a full preparedness and response plan that was released four days after the alarm,” he said.

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