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Omicron Response:

WHO Calls for a Pandemic Treaty, China Keeps Up Tough Zero-Covid Rules

November 28, 2021

 

 

Pandemic treaty to be front and centre at landmark WHO meeting

European leaders have been pushing for a global agreement to help guard against future health crises But some countries balk at giving the UN body more power or signing on without access to vaccines, observers say

Simone McCarthy

Published: 6:00pm, 28 Nov, 2021

The WHO and the European Union have been pushing for a “pandemic treaty” for months. Photo: EPA

When health ministers from around the world converge for a historic meeting this week, just one thing will be on the agenda.

On Monday, the governing body of the World Health Organization will begin only the second “special” session in the body’s 73-year history to consider whether some kind of treaty or agreement is needed to help fend off future pandemics.

The WHO and the European Union have been pushing for a “pandemic treaty” for months, with WHO director general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus repeating his pitch last week.

“The ongoing chaos of this pandemic only underlines why the world needs an ironclad global agreement to set the rules of the game for pandemic preparedness and response,” Tedros said on Wednesday.

“The world has treaties to manage other threats. Surely countries can agree on the need for a binding pact on the threat of pandemics.”

But it is not yet certain whether countries will agree to head in this direction at the three-day meeting.

UK bans travel from South Africa after emergence of new heavily-mutated Covid-19 variant

The meeting – held both online and in person in Geneva – comes nearly two years since Covid-19 was first detected in patients in China, but as the pandemic remains a crisis. New infections are rising, access to life-saving vaccines is unequal, variants continue to emerge and it is still not certain how the virus first spilled into people.

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Expert reviews in recent months have pointed to flaws in the international health system. Under regulations last revised in 2005, there is no way to ensure fair vaccine access or to hold countries accountable for fulfilling obligations on preparing for, reporting, and responding to public health emergencies.

Ayelet Berman, lead in global health at the National University of Singapore’s Centre for International Law, said there were many gaps in the international regulations.

“[These include] the prevention of zoonotic spillovers, a global alert system [for disease outbreaks], rules on biosecurity ... and they lack any rules on fair and equitable access to medicines and vaccines,” Berman said.

The “absence of compliance, monitoring and enforcement tools” also needed to be addressed, she said.

A “pandemic treaty” could address many of these issues. It could also include consequences for countries who sign on but do not comply.

The idea was suggested by European Council president Charles Michel a year ago but so far, the idea has had little public backing from major powers like the United States, China, and Russia, and health security analysts say those countries may be unwilling to back any significant increase in WHO powers.

“There is a global consensus that reforms are badly needed, but there is little agreement on how bold the reforms should be,” said Lawrence Gostin, faculty director of the O’Neill Institute for National & Global Health Law at Georgetown University in Washington.

Other options like revising existing International Health Regulations – which the US has pushed for – or creating non-legally binding guidelines, are also on the table.

Jaemin Lee, a professor of law at Seoul National University, said political sensitivities meant a treaty might be the most difficult and time consuming of the options, but such an agreement would have the benefit of legal teeth and interoperability with treaties under other UN bodies.

“[Even a] watered down treaty would be still better than the other alternative – a situation of an absence of legal norms,” Lee said.

But others argue that the process could drag on with no guarantees and urgent reforms could be made revising existing rules instead.

Analysts said this week’s three-day meeting would likely end with the establishment of a process to draft a treaty or other agreement, launching the next phase of pandemic politics.

“The negotiations will have a steep uphill battle,” Gostin said, noting the US could be open to a treaty, but would not “sign onto something sight unseen”.

“Major world powers like China, the US, Brazil, and Russia are highly unlikely to agree to strong WHO powers that would violate their sovereignty.

“If these major powers are not on board it will significantly weaken any future treaty. But I could see a ‘coalition of the willing’ signing on to a pandemic treaty, led by Europe.”

Yanzhong Huang, director of the Center for Global Health Studies at Seton Hall University in New Jersey, said there was an obvious divide on a treaty, with “at most lukewarm” support from major powers, compared with leaders in Europe and elsewhere.

Huang said the Sars outbreak of 2002-2003 helped galvanise countries to accelerate revisions to the international health regulations.

“This time, because we are still in a devastating pandemic ... you would think there would be solidarity in terms of supporting the negotiation of such a treaty, but the division already is clear,” he said.

China’s foreign ministry said China was “open to any efforts and measures that help strengthen global solidarity and coordinate response to future pandemics”.

It also said it was “willing to maintain communication and coordination with all parties on issues regarding a ‘pandemic treaty’”.

Zha Daojiong, a professor at the school of international studies at Peking University, said it might be easier for China to agree on broad goals, and treat international health as a part and parcel of development – similar to the approach it took on climate change.

Experts said another challenge could be balancing responsibilities to monitor and report new pathogens with ensuring fair access to medicines and vaccines.

Thomas Bollyky, director of the global health programme at the Council on Foreign Relations in New York, said it would be difficult for richer countries to insist that others expand their commitment to surveillance, early detection, and information sharing, without also assuring those countries that they would be able to have quick access to vaccines in the future.

Zha agreed that it was important to close the gap in the ability of countries to manage and respond to new outbreaks.

“Disparities among member societies in scientific, technical, therapeutic aspects of pandemic management continue to affect readiness to act upon discovery of a new virus,” he said.

“If the treaty negotiations tilt towards holding member states politically [or] diplomatically responsible rather than reinforcing support for networks of basic science, technology and industry level exchanges, the outcome risks ringing hollow coming the next pandemic.”

Simone McCarthy joined the Post in 2018. She previously wrote about China tech, business and society for SupChina and has a bachelor's in literature from Yale University and a master's from Columbia Journalism School.

Pandemic treaty to be front and centre at landmark WHO meeting | South China Morning Post (scmp.com)

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

Six months after report on Covid-19 response, members of independent body evaluate progress on the reforms they called for They say it has not been ‘fast or cohesive enough to bring this pandemic to an end across the globe in the near term, or to prevent another’

Simone McCarthy

SCMP, 12:00am, 23 Nov, 2021

The report said more needed to be done on equitable vaccination, including creating better systems for vaccine development, production and distribution. Photo: AFP

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.

Helen Clark said member states should “spend less time debating commas in committees while a pandemic still rages”. Photo: Reuters

Since that time there has been progress, “but it is not fast or cohesive enough to bring this pandemic to an end across the globe in the near term, or to prevent another”, wrote Clark and Sirleaf, noting that at least 90 million more people have contracted Covid-19 and 1.65 million more deaths have been recorded in those six months.

The independent panel’s official mandate came to an end after it submitted its main report in May, but Clark and Sirleaf said their new report – which included contributions from the 11 former panellists – evaluated the progress on the reforms they called for.

Those included giving more funding and power to the WHO, creating a permanent financing mechanism for pandemic preparedness and response capacities, forming a high-level Global Health Threats Council made up of heads of state, and enacting a pandemic treaty.

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“We are encouraged to see some movement to address the major gaps exposed in global pandemic preparedness and response. Conversations are happening in many of the right places,” Clark said in a statement ahead of the report launch. “The world now needs these conversations to come together – especially at the UN General Assembly, where heads of state and government can declare their commitments and a pathway to a more secure world.”

Ellen Johnson Sirleaf said the idea of a poor health worker being unprotected while the healthy and wealthy get booster shots “should present a deep moral quandary”. Photo: AFP

But the co-chairs also warned about foot-dragging on the international stage when it came to reforms including creating a pandemic treaty.

“We urge member states to spend less time debating commas in committees while a pandemic still rages, people are dying, and a new pandemic threat could arise any time and anywhere,” Clark said.

Vaccine access inequity was another critical issue outlined in the latest evaluation, with the panel calculating that there were at least 1 billion doses available to redistribute to low-income countries by September this year.

There had been progress in terms of the pledged vaccine donations through 2022 and the announcements of new mRNA vaccine production hubs in Latin America and on the African continent, but more needed to be done, especially in terms of creating better systems for vaccine development, production and distribution, they said.

“The idea that a poor health worker is unprotected while the healthy and wealthy receive booster doses should present a deep moral quandary. To this there is only one solution – vaccine equity,” Sirleaf said.

But widespread vaccine coverage alone cannot end the pandemic, wrote the experts, instead calling for ongoing public health measures and the cooperation of global leaders at the United Nations and the upcoming World Health Assembly.

“There is no single magic bullet to end pandemics, but there is a combination of measures that will,” they wrote. “It’s time now to make change happen.”

Simone McCarthy joined the Post in 2018. She previously wrote about China tech, business and society for SupChina and has a bachelor's in literature from Yale University and a master's from Columbia Journalism School.

Coronavirus: former heads of pandemic review panel warn ‘the world is losing time’ | South China Morning Post (scmp.com)

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Omicron response: China to wait, see and keep up tough zero-Covid rules, experts say

Close watch to be kept on new coronavirus variant but it’s too early to make conclusions, Zhong Nanshan says The country already has strict border controls in place as part of its ongoing zero-Covid policy

Guo Rui in Guangzhou + FOLLOW

SCMP, 8:00pm, 28 Nov, 2021

Shoppers wait in line to enter a store at an outdoor shopping center in Beijing. Photo: AFP

China has no plans to further tighten its border restrictions to contain the spread of the new and potentially more contagious Omicron coronavirus variant, leading Chinese experts said on Sunday.

A number of countries have limited travel to and from southern Africa since Friday, when the World Health Organization (WHO) declared a new Covid-19 variant detected in South Africa as one “of concern”.

The variant, called Omicron, has a large number of spike protein mutations and is the fifth variant to be given the designation.

Cases have already been detected in Hong Kong, Britain, Belgium, likely Germany and Italy, but Zhong Nanshan, one of China’s top respiratory disease specialists and a government adviser on its Covid-19 response, said the country had no plans to take any major action in response to the new variant.

“This mutant strain is very new. We’ll need to judge how harmful it is, how fast it will spread, whether it will make the disease more severe, and whether a vaccine needs to be developed against it,” state-owned Southern Daily quoted him as saying at a conference on Sunday.

“It’s too early to draw conclusions ... Prevention and control measures for people coming from South Africa need more attention.”

Wu Zunyou, chief epidemiologist at the Chinese Centre for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), also said China would wait and see, while maintaining its existing tough border controls.

“Globally, the pandemic is most serious mainly in Europe, and the prevalent strain this winter and next spring is Delta. Whether Omicron can develop into the dominant strain needs further close observation,” Wu said at Caijing magazine’s annual forecasts and strategies conference in Beijing.

Zhang Wenhong, the director of the Huashan Hospital’s department of infectious diseases and head of the Shanghai panel overseeing the treatment of Covid-19, said on his Weibo account that it would take about two weeks to determine if the variant “poses a threat to the current, initially established and vulnerable population immunity”.

“There will be no major impact on China at this time, and China’s current rapid response and dynamic clearance strategy is capable of dealing with all types of new coronavirus variants,” Zhang said.

Other countries have gone ahead with stricter entry rules.

Israel, which has already recorded one case of the variant, was the first country to close its borders, imposing a blanket ban on all foreign entering the country from midnight Sunday local time. In a statement to parliament, Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett said the ban, pending government approval, would last for 14 days.

The United States, Canada and Australia have also travel restrictions on travellers from southern Africa. The Philippines suspended flights from eight southern African countries, while Thailand banned travel for those countries and imposed quarantines on recent arrivals. The European Union has also announced plans to suspend flights from southern Africa.

But China already has strict border controls in place as part of its ongoing zero-Covid policy.

“For China, the zero-tolerance policy and prevention of overseas importation are the easiest and most effective ways to control the outbreak,” Wu said.

“Without that, in China, there would have been 47.84 million infections and 950,000 deaths based on global pathogenicity and mortality rates.

“If China adopted a policy similar to that of European and American countries, where tourists are allowed to enter with vaccination and 72-hour negative reports, the epidemic would break out all over the country and could not be controlled, and the efforts of the past two years would be wasted.”

Guo Rui is a China reporter covering elite politics, domestic policies, environmental protection, civil society, and social movement. She is also a documentary filmmaker, recording modern Chinese history and social issues through film. She graduated from Nankai University with a master degree in Modern Chinese History.

Omicron response: China to wait, see and keep up tough zero-Covid rules, experts say | South China Morning Post (scmp.com) 

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