The WHO

• The WHO is the authority of international health within the UN, working with UNICEF, the World Bank and the International Red Cross
• Covid-19 was first detected in Wuhan, China in November 2019
• The disease very quickly spread around the world via hierarchial diffusion because Wuhan's population is 11 million and it is a transport hub
• The main barriers to the disease diffusion include lack of globalisation in the most remote, poorest places that could not afford international travel
• India had lots of cases because more than 40% of Mumbai's population live in overcrowded slums, and in March 2021, the festival of Holi was celebrated, which may have caused more disease transmission
• The WHO shipped 19 million tests, provided 12,000 intensive care unit beds and 19.7 million respirator masks
• The Independent Panel for Pandemic Preparedness and Response said that the WHO should have declared a global emergency a week earlier than they did
• The WHO were hindered by its own regulations that travel restrictions should be a last resort, and they relied on information from China
• The UK started lockdown on 26th March 2020,implementing a 2 metre social distancing rule, gradually reopened shops and restaurants and later made face masks mandatory
• In Cuba, personnel travelled to China to learn more about the virus, they implemented door-to-door checks and contact tracing, and anyone hospitalised had 50% of their salary guaranteed by the state, despite a GDP per capita of only US$ 8800
• Prevention measures: masks, social distancing, self-isolation, 'Hands Face Space' campaign, sing 'Happy Birthday' twice when washing hands, hand sanitiser applied, sneeze into tissue/elbow, vaccinations made mandatory for travel, shielding vulnerable populations
• Diagnosis measures: testing centres, test and trace, lateral flow testing for children in schools twice a week, door-to-door screening in Cuba
• Treatment measures: anti-viral medication e.g. remdesivir (Veklury), self-help, ventilators for breathing issues, Nightingale Hospital built as a specific treatment centre but later closed down
• Death rates were not always available or accurate, and some governments would be slow to release it
• Covid-19 is believed to have originated in bats or pangolins, but some people think that it was a laboratory leak