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SINGAPORE – The director of the World Health Organization (WHO) has debunked arguments that countries have to choose between public health and the economy when considering whether to ease restrictions after a lockdown.
“That is a false choice,” said WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus. Instead, WHO urges countries to focus on four essential priorities:
– Avoid Covid-19 amplification events. Around the world, explosive outbreaks have been linked to gatherings, in places like stadiums, nightclubs and places of worship.
– Protect the vulnerable to save lives and reduce the burden on health systems in terms of serious and critical patients.
– Educate and empower communities to protect themselves and others. Physical distancing, hand hygiene, respiratory etiquette, and masks can help slow transmission and save lives, not when done in isolation, but by practicing all measures together.
– Persist in the basic concepts of public health. Find, isolate, test and care for people who have been infected, and track and quarantine your contacts.
Dr Tedros said that there are many countries that have “effectively prevented or controlled their outbreaks by doing these four things and doing them well,” and named Singapore and New Zealand as two such places.
He was speaking at the National University of Singapore’s Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine final Covid-19 webinar on Thursday (September 17), which discussed global solidarity. The session had 16 speakers, both local and foreign.
Dr. Tedros said that the pandemic has changed the world. “Lives and livelihoods have been lost, and economies and societies have been disrupted.
“The pandemic has exposed and exploited political failures and inequalities and gaps in national health systems.”
But on a more positive note, he said that for all that Covid-19 has taken from us, it has also given us something: a reminder of what really matters and the opportunity to forge a common future.
The real question is whether countries can come together in solidarity to share the fruits of research when a viable vaccine becomes available.
“Or will wrong nationalism reinforce the inequalities and injustices that have plagued our world for so long?” I ask.
“In our interconnected world, if people in low- and middle-income countries miss vaccines, the virus will continue to kill and economic recovery, globally, will be delayed.”
Dr. Tedros said: “The virus thrives in division. But united, we can defeat it. The pandemic has reminded us of a simple truth: that despite all our differences, we are one human race and we are stronger together.”
In April, the WHO together with the European Commission and France launched the Covax initiative to provide equitable access to vaccines against Covid-19. Since then, more than 170 countries have joined, including Singapore. They will be guaranteed access to the world’s largest portfolio of candidate vaccines.
Dr. Tedros said, “The first approved vaccine may not be the best. The more shots at goal we have, the better the chances of having a very safe and very effective vaccine.”
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