We have had a string of ‘end of the world’ pandemics of the last 20 years and all have been damp squibs.
I feel it’s real witch hunt thinking to single ANYONE out for lack of early action with covid19. The issue is that the WHO and other ‘expert’ bodies have cried wolf too often. Society as a whole just didn’t believe it this time either. How many folk were happily planning and booking holidays in Jan and Feb this year? I know I was. And I know I wasn’t alone !
EVERYONE has been caught out because we all thought it was another over reaction / false alarm. The Chinese subduing the truth absolutely fuelled this.
We also have to be very aware of lockdown fatigue. People will tire of it, do it too soon and you can easily ‘miss fire’.
And, the biggest thing we need to remember here is that covid19 IS here, it IS going to infect millions and it IS going to kill thousands and WE AIN’T GONNA STOP THAT. The strategy is therefore to ‘flatten the peak’ which means to accept the deaths, but spread them over time, that means staging the actions over time, not all at once.
All that said, IMHO the thing governments around the world are genuinely guilty of is not having much greater stockpiles of PPE and basic medical equipment. The WHO also are hugely guilty here, where was their sage like advice BEFORE the outbreak telling govts to stockpile etc? I sincerely hope this is something that is learnt for the future.
Personally, I’m really struggling to see the ‘value add’ of the WHO in this whole scenario.