Expert panel faults WHO early response and leaders who "devalued science"
CDC panel greenlights Pfizer shots for kids 12-15; and Australia shifts away from AstraZeneca vaccine.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s outside experts endorsed giving Pfizer’s COVID-19 vaccine to children as young as 12. The move was expected, and preparations were already underway across the country to begin vaccinating young people immediately. Expect many vaccine sites to start giving shots to 12-15-year-olds Thursday.
The Biden administration has plans for multiple channels of communications activity to promote COVID-19 shots for teens. Watch for events with physicians and other national groups, targeted outreach with influencers and roundtable with the Surgeon General and parents next week.
One week could have made a world of difference: An independent panel led by former New Zealand prime minister Helen Clark and former Liberia president Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, finds many global failures that contributed to the massive death toll of COVID-19 — failures that must be addressed to both control the current pandemic and prevent another. The report is worth reading, even if it is very depressing.
Countries that devalued science failed to build trust in their
response and pursued inconsistent strategies that left them lagging
behind the epidemic and with high infection and death rates.
-COVID-19: Make it the Last Pandemic
by The Independent Panel for Pandemic Preparedness & Response
WHO waited too long to publish an urgent alert. By the time it declared SARS-CoV-2 to be an international public health emergency on January 30, 2020, the virus already had been detected in 18 countries. One week later the number of known cases doubled and included 24 countries.
Chinese doctors sounded alarms early with Wuhan-wide health alerts published on December 30, 2019 that were picked up by media around the world. Scientists at the Wuhan Institute of Virology freely shared the genetic sequence of the virus on Jan. 11, 2020, and other Chinese scientists had a PCR diagnostic test by then.
Lack of preparedness hindered the response and caused severe supply shortages, but leaders who denied science and countries without coordinated nationwide actions crippled pandemic control.
Australia is shifting gears from the AstraZeneca vaccine to Moderna’s vaccine, ordering 10 million shots for immediate use and 15 million booster shots targeted to thwart variants in 2022.