The world had the tools to prevent the coronavirus pandemic – why weren’t they used?

A lack of political will and investment meant experts’ warnings were ignored.

A picture taken on March 9, 2020 shows the sign of the World Health Organization (WHO) at the WHO headquarters in Geneva. - The World Health Organization said on March 9, 2020 that more than 70 percent of those infected with the new coronavirus in China have recovered, adding that the country was "bringing its epidemic under control". (Photo by Fabrice COFFRINI / AFP) (Photo by FABRICE COFFRINI/AFP via Getty Images)

When crises happen the standard response of politicians is to argue that the crisis is so big that it was impossible to foresee. But in the case of Covid-19, this argument does not apply. While we do not know what form viruses may take or where they may originate, there is a vast apparatus of global health security designed to prepare, identify, and respond to the threat of destructive pandemics. Global health security rests on the notion that health crises can be a threat to individuals, states, and international peace and security. Those working in the field of global health security have been warning for decades about the potential threat of a mass pandemic. These warnings were ignored.

At the centre of pandemic preparedness is the World Health Organisation (WHO) and its main mechanism of global health security – the International Health Regulations (IHR). These rules commit member states to “detect, assess, and report” on new and emerging outbreaks and rest on a simple logic: identify an outbreak quickly; share information; follow clear public health protocols to contain it; stop an outbreak becoming a pandemic.