Speaker 1: Welcome to Prognosis. I'm Laura Carlson. It's day two hundred
Speaker 1: and forty four since coronavirus was declared a global pandemic.
Speaker 1: Today's main story. New Zealand's former Prime minister is heading
Speaker 1: up a report that will give the world a report
Speaker 1: card on the pandemic response, one finding. While some countries
Speaker 1: focused on flattening the curve, others decided the right approach
Speaker 1: was to stamp out the virus completely. But first, Here's
Speaker 1: what happened in virus News today. President Donald Trump has
Speaker 1: stayed silent as the u S coronavirus outbreak rageous. The
Speaker 1: leadership vacuum has left governors and health authorities on their
Speaker 1: own to grapple with record new cases and hospitalizations. Trump
Speaker 1: hasn't spoken publicly in a week, even though the virus
Speaker 1: is setting records across the country. He'll receive a briefing
Speaker 1: on Friday about vaccine development, but has otherwise focused his
Speaker 1: public comments on circulating debunked allegations of voter fraud and
Speaker 1: criticizing Fox News on Twitter. Experts say that the President
Speaker 1: could help by appealing directly to Americans to wear masks,
Speaker 1: encouraging Republican governors to do more to slow the spread
Speaker 1: and publicly backing health officials. He could direct his staff
Speaker 1: to jointly coordinate with President elect Joe Biden's transition team. Instead,
Speaker 1: he has discouraged masks in social distancing and is blocking
Speaker 1: the start of Biden's transition while refusing to concede defeat. Meanwhile,
Speaker 1: in England, new figures show that the rate of increase
Speaker 1: of COVID nineteen infections was already slowing the week the
Speaker 1: nation entered a four week lockdown. The total rate of
Speaker 1: infections was down slightly to one in eighty five in
Speaker 1: the week through November six. According to the Office for
Speaker 1: National Statistics, estimated new cases remained about fifty thousand per day. Finally,
Speaker 1: Italy's government is likely to extend its region by region
Speaker 1: lockdown system through the entire winter. The Deputy Health Minister,
Speaker 1: Pierre Paolo Solari told Bloomberg Television. This could counter the
Speaker 1: spread of the coronavirus while protecting the economy. And Now
Speaker 1: for today's main story, New Zealand is one of the
Speaker 1: countries that has been most successful in crushing the spread
Speaker 1: of the coronavirus. Now, the World Health Organization has asked
Speaker 1: former New Zealand Prime Minister Helen Clark to co chair
Speaker 1: and independent panel evaluating the critical steps taken early in
Speaker 1: the pandemic. She spoke to Senior editor Jason Gale about
Speaker 1: how different countries approached the virus spread and what they
Speaker 1: did right and wrong. Helen Clark says there are a
Speaker 1: lot of lessons to learn from how different countries responded
Speaker 1: to the pandemic. For starters, there's the US response. The
Speaker 1: country was slow to react to the pandemic, even though
Speaker 1: the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention understood how serious
Speaker 1: the situation was as early as January. From what I
Speaker 1: can see, and also Bob Woodward's latest book Rages very
Speaker 1: informative on the steps that CDC and other outreach in
Speaker 1: the United States had to China. Was they were right
Speaker 1: onto it from an early stage. But of course it's
Speaker 1: one thing to be right on to it. It's then
Speaker 1: to adopt a set of measures that will will deal
Speaker 1: with it now. One of the early points of contention,
Speaker 1: of course, is that the United States, New Zealand and
Speaker 1: a range of other countries are rather quickly put on
Speaker 1: travel bands from from China. The World Health Organization advice
Speaker 1: countries against implementing them and the only days of the pandemic,
Speaker 1: but the advice was ignored and one four countries up
Speaker 1: to travel off. These are restrictions, order closures, or some
Speaker 1: other way of stopping potentially infected people entering. In the
Speaker 1: case of New Zealand, Ellen says, it was a prudent measure,
Speaker 1: absolutely indispensable measure. As I recall Auckland as the national
Speaker 1: airport was accepting around nine international flights from China a day.
Speaker 1: What if we hadn't stopped them, I mean, it would
Speaker 1: have been a catastrophic. I'm totally supportive of cutting it off,
Speaker 1: and I think there's no public health grounds for saying
Speaker 1: that they don't help. Helen says the recommendation against travel
Speaker 1: restrictions is rooted in politics, not public health. It's all political.
Speaker 1: It's all who not being in a position to require
Speaker 1: that things were done, needing members state cooperation and not
Speaker 1: wanting to sufficiently alienate a member states so that cooperates less.
Speaker 1: So that that's unfortunate, but as the evidence shows it doesn't.
Speaker 1: Didn't stop a lot of countries, including my own, putting
Speaker 1: on travel bands because it was the sensible thing to do.
Speaker 1: The WHO also came under scrutiny for praising China for
Speaker 1: reporting the emergence of the virus, even while others criticize
Speaker 1: the country for a lack of trans barrency. Whistleblower doctors
Speaker 1: there had raised alarm about the virus spread, and it
Speaker 1: appeared the country could have been faster at sharing important
Speaker 1: information about the initial outbreak. Allen says, the organization was
Speaker 1: in a tough spot politically. My observation would be that
Speaker 1: the WHO is an international organization. You're in a position
Speaker 1: where it's very difficult to criticize a member state, any
Speaker 1: industry because you need the cooperation. You really have no
Speaker 1: paws except to persuade people to come along. The International
Speaker 1: Health Regulations set the rules on when and how outbreaks
Speaker 1: need to be reported to the WHO. The regulations are
Speaker 1: legally binding and enforced mostly by peer pressure. COVID, though,
Speaker 1: has spurred discussions about whether they need to be toughened,
Speaker 1: as the regulations were after the Chernobyl nuclear disaster in Ukraine.
Speaker 1: Is this at Chernobyl moment of the kind which led
Speaker 1: to strengthen cars of access and enforcement for the International
Speaker 1: Atomic Energy Agency on issues of of nuclear materials. Should
Speaker 1: there be an international convention as such which places more
Speaker 1: responsibilities or member states, would they agree to such expert responsibilities?
Speaker 1: Would they then accept the powers and sanctions that came
Speaker 1: with it. All that remains to be seen. How much
Speaker 1: of a wake up called has this been for every
Speaker 1: every country? But for now, the WHO is depending on cooperation,
Speaker 1: and I think that explains a lot about the way
Speaker 1: it's behaved. The World Health Organization's decision making body wants
Speaker 1: to understand where any mistaps occurred, including within the organization,
Speaker 1: and what lessons can be learned from the response to
Speaker 1: the pandemic so that the world can be better prepared
Speaker 1: next time. Helen and the former President of Liberia, Ellen
Speaker 1: Johnson Surley. We're appointed by w H Director General Gabrie
Speaker 1: Or in July to conduct their independent evaluation, which is
Speaker 1: due next May. Helen says the panel will develop a
Speaker 1: timeline of how the pandemic unfolded and review things like
Speaker 1: whether the WHO has the right mandate for pandemic preparedness
Speaker 1: and response and whether the Director General has the relevant authority.
Speaker 1: For instance, it took almost a week back in late
Speaker 1: January for the WHO to get agreement from outside experts
Speaker 1: on whether the new coronavirus constituted a so called public
Speaker 1: health emergency of international concern with a pandemic in a
Speaker 1: highly interconnected world six days of everything, lateness and reporting
Speaker 1: and notifying, the virtual is everything. So I think there
Speaker 1: are issues in there that we need to look at
Speaker 1: in the extent to which the Director General can call shots.
Speaker 1: As the world's leading global public health official, he should
Speaker 1: not be constrained. He should be able to tell the
Speaker 1: truth to power and make a call based on his
Speaker 1: professional judgment and backed by the professionals of the organization.
Speaker 1: A public health emergency of international concern is the w
Speaker 1: chose most serious health warning, but it took until March
Speaker 1: when COVID nineteen was declared a pandemic for a lot
Speaker 1: of people to pay attention. The word pandemic has typically
Speaker 1: been applied in the context of influenza and has used
Speaker 1: more to describe spread and severity. As we consider what
Speaker 1: it could be done better, perhaps you need a sort
Speaker 1: of gradient of decorations. At the moment, they have one tool,
Speaker 1: and it is to the clear the public health emergency
Speaker 1: of international concern. That's the highest level that they have,
Speaker 1: but that people don't sort of think horror when they
Speaker 1: hear that. And the word pandemic has no meaning in
Speaker 1: the w h O lexicon at this time under the
Speaker 1: International Health regulations. But eventually Dr ted Ross used the
Speaker 1: term because he knew he had to do something more
Speaker 1: to shake up awareness. And of course once the pandemic
Speaker 1: was used, well, it was almost pender motive and people
Speaker 1: said good grief. But the terminology matters and getting awareness,
Speaker 1: so I think attention needs to be drawn to that,
Speaker 1: Helen says. Another surprising takeaway is which country's responded best
Speaker 1: to the virus early on. Just over a year ago,
Speaker 1: a group of scientists ranked one d countries on how
Speaker 1: well equipped they were to respond to a pandemic. They
Speaker 1: found no country was fully prepared for a major health emergency,
Speaker 1: but the United States and the United Kingdom were at
Speaker 1: the top of the list, while New Zealand was ranked
Speaker 1: Heaven knows what factors were taken into account, but let
Speaker 1: me make a couple of observations. One is that the
Speaker 1: countries which responded most effectively to that very early way
Speaker 1: were those in in East and to some extent Southeast Asia,
Speaker 1: which had had experience of stars as a major threat
Speaker 1: Helen was Prime Minister of New Zealand when severe acute
Speaker 1: respiratory syndrome spread around the world in two thousand and three,
Speaker 1: and the truth is I can hardly remember anything about
Speaker 1: it because it didn't really reach us. What I do
Speaker 1: know the record shows is that what we did do
Speaker 1: was past purpose ready legislation, epidemic response legislation which was
Speaker 1: able to be dusted off by just sending a darn's
Speaker 1: government and implemented. And we did, as a result, develop
Speaker 1: a pandemic plan but it was flu. Now what this
Speaker 1: experience shows is that your pandemic planning must be very flexible.
Speaker 1: And the real breakthrough, I think for the New Zealand
Speaker 1: government response was in early March when it threw out
Speaker 1: the flu pandemic planning and said we're dealing with something
Speaker 1: completely different. This isn't about flattening hers. It's too dangerous
Speaker 1: for that. We are going to go for a stamping
Speaker 1: about strategy. The evaluation Helen's working on will give examples
Speaker 1: of strategies that have been beneficial. In a sense, it
Speaker 1: doesn't matter so much whether a country as democrated or
Speaker 1: not in that respect. What matters is that people have
Speaker 1: trust in the authorities and what they're recommending, and will
Speaker 1: say if that's going to beat it, that's good enough
Speaker 1: for me. And in New Zealand that had been people
Speaker 1: accepting quite extraordinary limits on their freedom of movement, which
Speaker 1: would never experienced before. But it paid off and today
Speaker 1: we live a much more relaxed life than than sad
Speaker 1: they met people in many other countries do. New Zealand's
Speaker 1: Prime minister just seem to idn has earned praise for
Speaker 1: her handling of the pandemic. The country's had just over
Speaker 1: cases of COVID nineteen in total. She's one of a
Speaker 1: group of maman leaders who are center have been very
Speaker 1: effective in that regard. Ungerla Merkel trained scientists, authoritative politics, society.
Speaker 1: People trust Unglea Merkel not to fall with them if
Speaker 1: she levels with them. They accept that. Very good performances
Speaker 1: by women leaders in nor Denmark, in Finland, in Iceland,
Speaker 1: in in Taiwan itself of course, and of course the
Speaker 1: fantastic examples of male leadership too. But we're leaders were
Speaker 1: prepared to engage the public, put all the facts on
Speaker 1: the table, be open about what they didn't know, because
Speaker 1: there's some things we don't know about the disease. I'd
Speaker 1: say this is the best advice we have. This is
Speaker 1: the judge that we've made, This is what we're asking
Speaker 1: you to do, and people have gone along. That was
Speaker 1: Jason Gaile and that's it for our show today. For
Speaker 1: coverage of the outbreak from one and twenty beers around
Speaker 1: the world, visit bloomberg dot com slash Coronavirus and if
Speaker 1: you like the show, please leave us a review and
Speaker 1: a rating on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. It's the best
Speaker 1: way to help more listeners find our global reporting. The
Speaker 1: Prognosis Daily edition is produced by Too for Foreheads, Jordan Gospure,
Speaker 1: Magnus Henrickson and me Laura Carlson. Today's main story was
Speaker 1: reported by Jason Gail. Original music by Leo Sidrin. Our
Speaker 1: editors are Rick Shine and Francesco Levi. Francesco Levi is
Speaker 1: Bloomberg's head of podcasts. Thanks for listening.