Coronavirus: former heads of pandemic review panel warn 'the world is losing time'

Coronavirus: former heads of pandemic review panel warn 'the world is losing time' Governments are not moving fast enough to end the pandemic or to prevent another one, warned the former heads of an independent body tasked with grading the world on its response to Covid-19. "Waves of disease and death continue - as people in the northern hemisphere move indoors, fatigue with restrictions sets in, vaccine coverage and other countermeasures remain uneven, and people in the poorest countries have almost no access to vaccines," wrote former New Zealand prime minister Helen Clark a Yahoo

Governments are not moving fast enough to end the pandemic or to prevent another one, warned the former heads of an independent body tasked with grading the world on its response to Covid-19.

"Waves of disease and death continue - as people in the northern hemisphere move indoors, fatigue with restrictions sets in, vaccine coverage and other countermeasures remain uneven, and people in the poorest countries have almost no access to vaccines," wrote former New Zealand prime minister Helen Clark and former Liberian president Ellen Johnson Sirleaf in a report released on Monday.

"The world is losing time," they said.

Their warning comes ahead of a special session of the World Health Organization's governing body next week where health ministers from around the globe will discuss whether to develop a new treaty or other reforms on how the world prepares for and responds to pandemics.

It also comes six months after the Independent Panel for Pandemic Preparedness and Response - a body set up by the WHO director general and chaired by Clark and Sirleaf - outlined urgent reforms and findings based on nine months of research into how the Covid-19 outbreak first identified in China became a crippling pandemic....