WHO reports early failings on pandemic

With many countries beginning mass vaccinations against the COVID-19 pandemic, the World Health Organiza-tion (WHO) in Geneva, Switzerland, and many other organizations that found themselves in the middle of it all have started to take stock of that damage and the losses it has caused around the world.

An interim report, describes how so many governments and public health organizations responded slowly and ineffectively at the start of the pandemic, despite years of warnings. It included missteps by the WHO itself.

“We failed in our collective capacity to come together in solidarity to create a protective web of human security,” said the report, written by an Independent Panel for Pandemic Preparedness and Response, led by former prime minister Helen Clark of New Zealand.

Governments failed to obtain protective equipment and do widespread contact tracing, the panel said. Investigators, it added, could not understand why a WHO committee waited until January 30 to declare an international health emergency.