An independent panel says Chinese officials could have applied public health measures more forcefully in January to curb the initial covid-19 outbreak, and criticised the World Health Organisation (WHO) for not declaring an international emergency until 30 January.

The experts reviewing the global handling of the pandemic, led by former New Zealand Prime Minister Helen Clark and former Liberian President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, called for reforms to the Geneva-based United Nations agency.

Their interim report was published hours after the WHO’s top emergency expert, Dr Mike Ryan, said global deaths from covid-19 were expected to top 100,000 per week “very soon”.

• READ MORE: ‘Catastrophic moral failure’: WHO warns over vaccine distribution
• Other covid-19 pandemic reports

“What is clear to the Panel is that public health measures could have been applied more forcefully by local and national health authorities in China in January,” the report said, referring to the initial outbreak of the new disease in the central city of Wuhan, in Hubei province.

As evidence emerged of human-to-human transmission, “in far too many countries, this signal was ignored”, it added.

Specifically, it questioned why the WHO’s Emergency Committee did not meet until the third week of January and did not declare an international emergency until its second meeting on 30 January.

“Although the term pandemic is neither used nor defined in the International Health Regulations (2005), its use does serve to focus attention on the gravity of a health event. It was not until 11 March that WHO used the term,” the report said.

‘Not fit for purpose’
“The global pandemic alert system is not fit for purpose”, it said. “The World Health Organisation has been underpowered to do the job.”

Under President Donald Trump, the United States has accused the WHO of being “China-centric”, which the agency denies.

European countries led by France and Germany have pushed for addressing the WHO’s shortcomings on funding, governance and legal powers.

The panel called for a “global reset” and said that it would make recommendations in a final report to health ministers from the 194 member states of WHO in May.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

Tokelau has suspended two of its public servants in Samoa, after a review into the purchase of two helicopters found the pair went behind officials’ backs.

This follows restrictions on Tokelau’s spending placed by Administrator David Nicholson after Minister Murray McCully slammed the millions of dollars spent on the helicopters, which Tokelau will now sell off.

A summary of the review carried out by a New Zealand company on behalf of Administrator Nicholson found the Tokelau Public Service Commission, operating out of Apia, “did not have the authority to make the purchase”.

Aleki Silao, an adviser to the public service, told Asia Pacific Report in an email that “two senior officials have been suspended” with full pay by Commissioner Casimilo Perez, pending the outcome of the commissioner’s investigation into their actions.

Silao said the terms of reference for the investigation were still being considered by Tokelau’s government and lawyers.

The review revealed the helicopters came as “a surprise” to both Tokelau’s government and the administrator, who were not consulted by public service officials.

It said New Zealand also “offered technical assistance” which wasn’t accepted by Tokelau but the review did not clarify what this was for.

Although the governments of New Zealand and Tokelau approved bigger picture plans for an interim transport solution, this was still thought to be in a “preparation phase”. 

Also highlighted was the role the “disjoint” between public service officials in Apia and decision-makers in Tokelau had in the purchases.

At Tokelau’s General Fono in March, Ulu Siopili Perez announced the Apia public service offices would be relocated to Tokelau by the end of the year.

The review concluded by making a number of recommendations, including improving Tokelau’s governance and undertaking “a capacity building programme to support the planning and implementing of capital development”.

• ‘Heavy handed’ NZ clamps down on Tokelau spending
• New revelation in Tokelau chopper furore in air transport ‘big picture’

Father Francis X. Hezel reviews a new book on climate change corruption and development in the Pacific. And the message is rather sobering.

BOOK REVIEW: Giff Johnson’s latest work – Idyllic No More: Pacific Islands Climate, Corruption and Development Dilemmas – is a call to serious planning and more. The author summons leaders to recognise that life has changed in the Marshalls and the status quo is the road to disaster.

There was a time when this might not have been true – when people who wanted to kick back and live a simple island life could quietly opt out of school and retire to the family land to provide for themselves as their ancestors had done for generations in an island society that offered the resources, physical and social, to support its population.

But times have changed, the author convincingly argues. That kind of idyllic fallback is no longer an option. Residents of the Marshalls, including those outer atolls where life was simple and cheap, are voting with their feet.

The outflow of Marshallese to the United States is steadily increasing, slowly emptying the remote atolls even as it drains the population of the two large population centers, Majuro and Ebeye. Islanders today expect meaningful employment but find none at home.

Marshallese today want more but seem to be getting less. Water supplies are contaminated in many places, the copra industry which once provided modest disposable income for those who worked the land has gone south, and the quality of education is not what it once was.

No wonder people now describe themselves as “poor”. Normal household tasks have become more challenging with the breakdown of the old extended family on which they relied. As a result, even basic care of children often leaves a lot to be desired.

In today’s world no island is simply an island. All nations have subscribed, willingly or not, to standards that are spelled out in global millennium development goals.

Stalled progress
Measured by these standards, progress in the Marshalls has stalled.

Donors may open their hearts and wallets to the Marshalls, but the money given is all too often regarded as a treat to be passed around the table and sampled by everyone rather than for its real purpose. Consultants come in and craft a report outlining reform measures that goes unread and unimplemented.

Government employees fly off to attend meetings that multiply each year and leave them little time to provide the public services their people so badly need.

How does this small island nation chart a new course for itself? One that offers it the hope of finding new resources while conserving those it now has? One that provides a pathway to the development that government and people claim to want for themselves? One that is, in that over-worked phrase, sustainable?

The answer is not nearly as elusive as it might appear, the author suggests. But making this happen will require reform: a change in habits, especially on the part of the government, and a readiness to implement practices that we know can be successful but threaten our own interests.

That’s what it will take, no matter whether we’re dealing with global warming, preserving fish stock in national waters, improving education and health services, or trying to make the heavy emigration work to the advantage of the Marshall Islands.

Father Francis X. Fran Hezel was the founder and long-time director of the Micronesian Seminar in Pohnpei. He is now based on Guam and writes a regular blog at: www.wheresfran.org.

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