WHO bears no responsibility (better word: accountability) as it is comprised of member states who define and fund it, that do. Findings, medical experts, doctors come from member state contributions.
Given conflicting reports, underreporting, unknowns, denials, how this virus transmits, this could only be handled better with crisis policies.
The world didn't operate in crisis mode until now.
However, I am a dual US|EU (Croatian) citizen living in Croatia. I am culturally American.
The US had the expertise, technological capacity, and economic investment capacity to be able to eradicate the virus. Very few governments have similar resources and the ability to scale like the US government, which is quite unique. The issue was the political party that we had in place, with their recent neoliberalism. We also have an uncooperative public, that is unwilling to take temporary pain to minimize a ton more pain (from the virus) for the future.
Croatia actually has great public health infrastructure, and also has a cooperative public that follows public health advice and orders. We also have brave politicians (a lot of them were officers in the Croatian Homeland War) that are willing to take bold, unpopular political risks. They will take one for the team, if that is what it takes.
Early on in the pandemic, Croatia came very close to eliminating the virus, and was rated by Oxford as having the strictest government response (I believe in its first review/publication of the metric?). You could not leave your neighborhood without a digital pass issued by the government, which was only given out for absolutely necessary reasons (e.g. medical care). That’s right: the Croatian police had each neighborhood cordoned off and barricaded, so you could not effectively leave without a digital pass (attempting to illegally leave would mean a big fine!). Croatia also had 30 days of food and supplies for all of its citizens in a government warehouse. Pricing was fixed for critical supplies such as food, and still is, which helps prevent panic buying. Also, if you test positive for corona, you will be issued a rješenje (a government administrative decision) ordering you to quarantine for 14 days. Besides being very cooperative, Croatians would not think of breaking quarantine, as the vast majority cannot afford to. The first violation is a 1,000 Euro fine. The second violation is a 16,000 Euro fine. Oh yeah, the police will stop by your apartment multiple times randomly to check on you to see if you are actually quarantined.
Croatia failed because they chose tourist season over attempting to eradicate the virus.
> Croatia failed because they chose tourist season over attempting to eradicate the virus.
One thing I want to see get researched the next few years is the way the slavic countries pretty much completely avoided the first wave that hit many other parts of Europe so bad, only to then get hit (in some cases much more severely) by the second and third waves.
Since this also happened to less touristy countries like B&H, Bulgaria and Slovakia I do think it is more complicated than that. (But I’m in another part of EU so I might be missing something.)
"According to data from the Department of Veteran's Affairs, approximately 405,000 Americans died in the Second World War while 36,000 lost their lives in the Korean War. The Vietnam War resulted in another 58,000 deaths with the collective toll of all three conflicts coming in at around half a million. As of February 23, 2021, the Johns Hopkins University lists 500,310 Americans as having died from Covid-19. If a minute of silence was held for every death during the pandemic, it would take nearly a year - 347 days - to honor all the people the U.S. has lost."
That is an extremely matter-of-fact reply, and I salute you. I disagree with "WHO bears no responsibility" insofar as the leadership of organizations ought to be able to be held to account. You might need to elaborate on what "crisis policies" you would find acceptable.
Of course everyone is responsible for their own efforts. It's just that WHO is no government (NGO) and thus not accountable like one, and also have no authority. Without member contributions, WHO doesn't exist. It reports medical findings from states, but the caveats are denials, misreporting, unknowns, early confusion, etc. which may be expected in an early breakout. The better the cooperation, things can improve. Otherwise, not.
We should of course minimize crisis mode. Without it, expect similar response. I doubt the world will be going back, but will need to tackle more crises.
This one is the perfect mirror for states. Only full lockdown will contain contagion, but many don't have that sophistication yet. Those who didn't lockdown early, got hit hard economically too.
I think identifying pandemics is literally a defined responsibility of the WHO. Regarding which, the WHO-commissioned report states:
"The WHO waited too long to declare a public health emergency of international concern, the panel said, after the reporting of an initial cluster of cases in December 2019."
Given conflicting reports, underreporting, unknowns, denials, how this virus transmits, this could only be handled better with crisis policies.
The world didn't operate in crisis mode until now.