Geneva: Five years ago on Tuesday, the World Health Organization (WHO) announced that Covid -9 had become a pandemic-a time when people eventually woke up to disaster.
Who had already heard his own higher alarm five weeks earlier. But this warning – which does not mention the word “P” – had escaped.
At a press conference on March 11, 2020, United Nations Head of Health Service Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said eventually that the deterioration of the epidemic could be “characterized as a pandemic”.
Only then many countries understood the seriousness of the situation and – too late – injured in action.
The pandemic, as they had not seen in a century, killed millions, shredded economies and accumulated health systems.
SHOC room scene
Tedros had already plunged the world’s top bell, declaring an emergency public health of international concern on January 30, 2020. Pheic lasted until May 5, 2023.
Throughout February 2020, journalists had repeatedly asked a pandemic and at a press conference on March 9, Tedros said that “the threat of a pandemic has become very real”.
The March 11 press conference was scheduled for 5:00 pm (1600 GMT) in the lowest room of the Health Strategy Center (SHOC) at its headquarters in Geneva.
The OPS Emergency Node was used for internal breakfast updates at Covid and updating the press in the afternoon.
The 59 -minute -type update described Tedros, which emergency manager Michael Ryan and Maria Van Kerkhove, a technical head of the health program for health program.
The Tedros took two pens out of his jacket, settled his glasses, looked around the room and read the bomb update from a print in his office.
It began by saying that the number of cases outside China had increased 13 times in the last fortnight and the number of affected countries had tripled to 114. About 4,291 people were dead and thousands more in the hospital.
“We are deeply worried about both the worrying levels of spread and the seriousness – and by the worrying levels of inactivity,” Tedros said.
“Therefore, we have made the evaluation that Covid-19 can be described as a pandemic.”
Game variable
Veteran correspondent John Zarocostas sat three seats from Van Kerkhove.
“The word ‘pandemic’ changed the game,” he said AFPwhich also watched the historical update.
He said that the turn came as a greatest shock to the outside world rather than those of the room, who had followed his updates.
“I had the feeling that (OWA) had to do this because they did not receive the expected reaction of the Member State” from PHEIC Declaration weeks earlier, he explained.
“It changes the political dynamic in terms of the reaction of the national government. Everyone was transferred to full speed.”
WHO saw the announcement as describing a situation that had become obvious, rather than declaring a new level of emergency. But people saw it differently.
“People were possessed with the word pandemic,” said one frustrated Ryan on the March 2022 anniversary.
“The warning in January (2020) was much more important than the announcement in March.
“Do you want the warning to say that I just drowned? Or would you like the warning to say that the flood is coming?”
New button “Emergency Pandemic”
The Covid-19 pandemic has climbed into human society and could happen again. What says the next pandemic is just a matter of time.
In December 2021, its member states began to draw up an agreement on the prevention, readiness and response of a pandemic to address the failures exposed by Covid-19.
They have a final negotiating session next month to complete the text for the annual assembly of who in May.
They have already agreed that its head of which, since September, will be able to declare an even higher level of “emergency pandemic”-a pandemic Pheic-which we hope will attract more attention.
Tedros continues to warn countries against the repetition of the neglect followed by a panic that characterized the accumulation by March 11, 2020.
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