‘Untrustworthy and ineffective’: Panel blasts governments’ covid response

“What we saw — rather than a cooperative global strategy — was basically each country on its own,” Jeffrey Sachs, a Columbia University economist who chaired the commission, told reporters in a briefing convened by the respected medical journal. “National leaders deciding … the strategy and the fates of their countries in an incredibly haphazard way.”

As a result, the virus ripped through the world in “highly unequal” ways, the panel concluded, with severe consequences for the most vulnerable, among them children who suffered learning losses from disrupted schooling, people in low-income nations forced to wait for vaccine doses, and patients who endure continuing pain and other health problems attributed to long covid.

“Global and national decisions didn’t consider the less vocal voices of our communities — the ones who do not vote, like immigrants and refugees, or who do not have the energy to raise their concerns, like our elders. People that were too busy taking care of us, like essential workers and women that were at the front lines fighting the virus without professional equipment,” said Gabriela Cuevas Barrón, a Mexican politician and member of the Lancet commission.

The Lancet report also criticizes the WHO, saying the global health watchdog “acted too cautiously and too slowly” on several urgent matters, such as recognizing the virus was spreading through airborne transmission. The commission calls for strengthening the United Nations agency by giving it more financing and authority, and it also urges the creation of a new global health board to help the WHO make timely decisions.

In a statement, WHO spokeswoman Margaret Harris said the organization welcomed the commission’s recommendations and concurred with its call for more funding. But Harris warned of “several key omissions and misinterpretations,” saying the panel had wrongly characterized “the speed and scope of WHO’s actions.”

As health providers around the world brace for a third coronavirus winter, the commission contends that “globally coordinated efforts” can end the pandemic, urging a sustained approach to mass vaccinations, adoption of public health measures such as masking in some settings, social and financial support for infected people to continue isolating, and true cooperation among the world’s most influential nations.

“China, the United States, the E.U.,…