Friday, March 11, 2022

WHO frustration two years on since pandemic declaration




Robin MILLARD
Thu, March 10, 2022

Friday marks two years to the day since the World Health Organization first described Covid-19 as a pandemic, shaking countries into action as the disease ripped around the planet.

The once-in-a-century pandemic has turned the world upside down, claiming more than six million lives and infecting at least 450 million people.

But the WHO voiced its frustration at people marking the second anniversary of March 11, 2020, insisting that the real alarm came six weeks earlier -- but few people bothered to sit up and take notice.

The WHO declared a public health emergency of international concern (PHEIC) -- the highest level of alarm in the global health regulations -- on January 30, 2020, when, outside of China, fewer than 100 cases and no deaths had been reported.

But it was only when WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus described the worsening situation as a pandemic on March 11 that many countries seemed to wake up to the danger.

The WHO is not marking the anniversary -- and two years on is still irked that governments did not heed the original alert.

"The world was possessed with the word pandemic," said WHO emergencies director Michael Ryan.

"The warning in January was way more important than the announcement in March.

"Do you want the warning to say you've just drowned, or would you like the warning to say the flood is coming?"

- World 'well warned' -


Ryan said the PHEIC declaration fell on deaf ears.

"People weren't listening. We were ringing the bell and people weren't acting," he told a live interaction on the WHO's social media channels on Thursday.

"What I was most stunned by was the lack of response, the lack of urgency in relation to WHO's highest level of alert in international law, as agreed by all our member states. They agreed to this!"

He said the declaration of a pandemic was simply stating the obvious once it had already happened -- and insisted countries had plenty of advance notice.

"There's a lot of people in the media and everywhere have this big argument, WHO declared a pandemic late. No!" said Ryan.

"The world was well warned about the impending pandemic.

"By March, I think there was such frustration that it was, 'OK, you want a pandemic, here's your pandemic'."

By March 11, 2020, the number of cases outside China had increased 13-fold, with more than 118,000 people having caught the disease in 114 countries, and 4,291 people having lost their lives, following a jump in deaths in Italy and Iran.

- 'Wrong anniversary' -

Tedros's use of the word came at around 5:30 pm during a press conference on Covid-19, which by this stage was already being held largely online via Zoom.

He said it six times in quick succession -- and 10 times in all.

"We're deeply concerned both by the alarming levels of spread and severity and by the alarming levels of inaction," Tedros said.

"We have therefore made the assessment that Covid-19 can be characterised as a pandemic. Pandemic is not a word to use lightly or carelessly."

Ryan was alongside him that day, as was Maria Van Kerkhove, the WHO's technical lead on Covid-19.

Two years on, she said that this Friday, people would be marking the "wrong anniversary".

"It is fundamentally incorrect," she insisted.

"You hear the frustration in our voices because we still haven't corrected the narrative.

"It will happen again! So when are we actually going to learn?

"More than six million people have died, that we know of. I don't think we've even begun to grieve this, at a global level."

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Poll: Some in U.S. gained better habits during the COVID-19 pandemic

By HealthDay News

About one-quarter of people in the United States say they developed better habits during the two years of the COVID-19 pandemic, a new poll found. 
File Photo by John Angelillo/UPI | License Photo

About one-quarter of Americans say they made positive changes to their daily habits during the COVID-19 pandemic, a new poll shows.

As U.S. states ended masking mandates and infection numbers dropped this year, most (64%) respondents said their mood had been stable since January and that the pandemic either hadn't affected their daily habits (49%) or had changed them for the better (26%).

But 28% said their mental health was fair or poor, 17% said they were smoking more, and 18% said they were drinking more, according to the latest American Psychiatric Association monthly survey of 2,500 adults, conducted Feb. 18-19, 2022.

"While many Americans seem to have emerged from the pandemic feeling good about their new habits, there are some points of concern here, such as those who've started using substances more than before," said Dr. Vivian Pender, president of the APA.

She also cited the need to keep an eye on financial concerns.

Respondents making less than $50,000 a year (35%) were 7% more likely than all adults to rate their mental health as fair or poor. They were more than three times as likely to do so as respondents making $100,000 or more (11%).

"People's finances can matter to mental health, which is important to monitor while the nation's economy is in flux," Pender said Monday in an APA news release.

Fathers (37%) were nearly two times more likely than mothers (19%) and all adults (18%) to say their mood had changed for the better in the past month.

Dads were also much more likely (45%) than moms (29%) and all adults (26%) to say time at home had changed their daily habits for the better.

The survey also found differences between racial/ethnic groups, with 20% of Hispanic adults saying their mood was worse in February than in January, compared to 15% of all adults.

But 32% of Hispanic adults and 36% of Black adults said their daily habits improved during the pandemic, compared with 24% of adults of other ethnicities.

Respondents who said they felt better than in January attributed the improvement to generally feeling good (45%) and the weather (27%).

Those who felt worse cited finances (20%), inflation (10%), financial stress (10%), money (10%) and COVID-19 (20%).

Men were more likely than women to say they had increased the amount they exercise, shower, drink alcohol, and smoke or use drugs.

Hispanic adults (36%) and Black adults (33%) were more likely than those of other ethnicities (27%) to report an increase in how much they talk about their mental health.

About a third of adults (35%) said they often wonder if their habits might be related to a more significant mental health issue, such as obsessive-compulsive disorder, anxiety or substance use disorder.

That concern was higher among Hispanic respondents (46%) than among White adults (34%), Black adults (40%), or people of another ethnicity (36%).

More information

For more on COVID-19 and mental health, see the nonprofit Mental Health America.

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