China, WHO Fumbled Coronavirus Pandemic Response, Independent Panel Finds

CHINA AND THE WORLD Health Organization could have responded quicker and more definitively to contain the coronavirus pandemic at its outset, an independent review panel determined.

In its second interim report published Monday, the Independent Panel for Pandemic Preparedness and Response, an impartial body established by WHO, determined that China could have been more forceful in implementing public health measures when COVID-19 cases were first discovered in Wuhan.

"What is clear to the panel is that public health measures could have been applied more forcefully by local and national health authorities in China in January [2020]," the report said. "It is also clear to the panel that there was evidence of cases in a number of countries by the end of January 2020. Public health containment measures should have been implemented immediately in any country with a likely case. They were not."