<
https://theconversation.com/5-years-of-covid-19-underscore-value-of-coordinated-efforts-to-manage-disease-while-cdc-nih-and-who-face-threats-to-their-ability-to-respond-to-a-crisis-249126>
"Five years ago, on March 11, 2020, the World Health Organization declared the
outbreak of COVID-19 a global pandemic. The novel coronavirus, dubbed
SARS-CoV-2, began as a “cluster of severe pneumonia cases of unknown cause”
reported in Wuhan, China, in December 2019. It had spread to 118,000 cases
reported in 114 countries by March 11.
Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, WHO director-general at the time, said in a
media briefing that day that “the WHO is deeply concerned both by the alarming
levels of spread and severity and by the alarming levels of inaction.” He urged
leaders to move quickly to scale up their emergency responses, saying that “all
countries can still change the course of this pandemic.”
Public health agencies like the WHO and the U.S. Centers for Disease Control
and Prevention played critical roles throughout the pandemic in coordinating
with local health departments to detect, trace and test for the virus. The WHO
and CDC websites received unprecedented traffic as they became invaluable go-to
sources for the most up-to-date resources on means of prevention, case numbers,
hospitalizations and deaths. The National Institutes of Health was instrumental
in its development of COVID-19 treatments and contributions to vaccine
research.
Now, five years later, the Trump administration has cut more than 5,000
employees at the NIH and the CDC combined, and is withdrawing the U.S. from the
WHO.
At the same time, the U.S. is facing outbreaks of tuberculosis, a resurgence of
measles among unvaccinated communities, and the worst flu season in 15 years.
Much of the work of the WHO, CDC and other public health agencies occurs behind
the scenes, only occasionally drawing public attention. To put these roles into
perspective, it can be helpful to examine public health before these unifying
entities existed."
Via Violet Blue’s
Threat Model - Covid: March 27, 2025
https://www.patreon.com/posts/covid-march-27-125269295
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
