A pandemic that changed everything. Covid-19 transformed billions of lives since 2020. The virus that appeared in Wuhan in December 2019 set off all the alarms. A 61-year-old man, whose name is still unknown, was the first victim of pneumonia.
What happened in the days that followed will be difficult to forget in history. On January 11, 2020, the Wuhan Municipal Health Commission sounded the alarm and assured that the infections were occurring due to “an outbreak of a yet unidentified virus“.
The images that came from China in the following weeks, with millions of people confined to their homes, disinfection teams working in the streets, They looked like something out of a horror movie.. But it wouldn’t take long to reach Europe.
“Five years ago, the WHO emergency response mechanism for #COVID19 was fully operational and work was underway to evaluate and respond to reports of cases of pneumonia of a then unknown cause in China“, has detailed the World Health Organization.
The international health organization has recalled that, while cases were multiplying in the Asian country, it had already “began to communicate with its Member States about what was known about the group of cases“.
“On January 5, it shared detailed information with countries through its Event Information System. The event advisory recommended countries take precautions to reduce the risk of acute respiratory infections“, ah recollection.
Spain registered the first case of covid on January 31, 2020. 42 days later, the situation due to the health crisis.
A pandemic that is difficult to forget
One day before that first contagion in Spain, the Emergency Committee of the International Health Regulations (IHR, 2005), in its meeting on January 30, 2020, declared the outbreak of the new coronavirus as a Public Health Emergency of International Concern ( ESPII).
The WHO recalled that its first information bulletin on disease outbreaks came out on January 5 and already established the first steps of a virus about which very little was still known.
“The lessons learned in these areas continue to shape global preparedness and response efforts today“, highlighted the United Nations agency.
Five years after the first death, SARS-CoV-2 It has caused at least the death of more than 7 million people around the worldaccording to data published by the United Nations.
The virus changed the routine of millions of people. Many of them continue to suffer the consequences of persistent covid, others have the feeling that 2020 was a short time ago.
But the pandemic also left numerous learnings. The first of them was to maintain a safe distance between people, wash hands well and apply the use of a mask to avoid spreading any respiratory disease.
The epidemiologist and former director of Health Action in Crisis at the WHO Daniel López Acuña explains in a telephone conversation that the pandemic “has left us many lessons, but we have not internalized them.”
“There is a lot to learn from the pandemic. There are studies and publications of lessons learned, but the big problem is what we do with those lessons, how much memory we have and how much we internalize them. One of the lessons is pandemic preparedness. We must not allow “A pandemic problem catches us by surprise again,” he defends.
One of the lessons is pandemic preparedness. We must not allow ourselves to be caught by surprise by a pandemic problem again
Daniel López Acuña, epidemiologist and former director of Health Action in Crisis at the WHO
Daniel López Acuña justifies that all countries “should have a very clear contingency plan to mobilize the necessary resources for health care in crisis situations” and all of them “should also have strategic reserves of medicines, equipment, masks and, especially, vaccines when available“.
“We have to be better prepared”
The former director of Health Action in Crisis at the WHO justifies that you must be “prepared” for everything and gives as an example the fear of a new bird flu pandemic. “We know the virus, there are reserves and we have vaccines. We have to do a lot of surveillance, the importance of tackling things with the one health report. Zoonoses surveillance, human health and environmental health must be articulated,” he reasons.
Daniel López Acuña remembers that covid “continues to cause deaths” and it should not be forgotten that “they have produced more than 7 million.” “As if it were a world war“he points out.
He believes that this lack of preparation was key in 2020. With Wuhan on alert, he believes that Europe did not know how to be on alert. “At first, we were, as a society, too expectant thinking that this was only a problem for China. We have to be much better prepared“, he assures.
“We failed to understand that we were facing a new, serious, unknown infectious agent, for which there was no vaccine. And It has been shown that, at that time, the only way to reduce deaths was confinement. Thanks to this, millions of lives were saved“, he justifies.
Back to China data
Five years after the first cases of the new pneumonia were known, the WHO has once again asked China to share its data to understand the origins of covid-19.
“This is a moral and scientific imperative. Without transparency, exchange and cooperation between countries, the world cannot adequately prevent and prepare for future epidemics and pandemics,” the organization said in a statement.
At first, the Chinese authorities and their related media pointed to the possibility that the virus had its origin abroad. It was not until 2021 that a joint commission of experts from China and the WHO was able to visit Wuhan.
The final report considers between “probable and very probable“that the coronavirus originated in wild species and was spread to other species before jumping to humans. However, the origin and transmission route have not been clearly established.
China has responded to the organization and has assured that it has always acted with “transparency” when sharing information. The spokesperson for the Chinese Foreign Ministry, Mao Ning, stated in a press conference that, in the face of the “political manipulation attempts“Beijing has always tried to collaborate in international efforts, according to the official newspaper Global Times.
In this sense, he said that after the start of the outbreaks, the Chinese authorities shared data with the WHO and other actors in the international community. According to the spokesperson, Chinese information on prevention, control, diagnosis and treatment was key to the global fight against the pandemic.
But this small tiff between China and the UN body has not tarnished the fifth anniversary. Five years after the first cases, the WHO has asked to take “a moment to honor the lives changed and lost, recognize those suffering from covid-19 and long covid, express gratitude to the healthcare workers who sacrificed so much to care for us and commit to learning from covid to build a healthier tomorrow“.
