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--- jeffrey_sachs [2022/09/19 04:26]
pamela [Lancet Covid-19 Commission]
+++ jeffrey_sachs [2022/09/19 17:10] (current)
pamela
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+==== Interview Robert F. Kennedy Jr. ====
-==== Lancet Covid-19 Commission ====
+August 25, 2022 - The Defender Show
+‘The Defender Show’ Episode 64: The Origins of COVID-19 With Jeffrey Sachs
+((https://live.childrenshealthdefense.org/shows/the-defender-show/VIDcX7lZl9))
+==== Lancet Covid-19 Commission Report ====
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 Executive summary
-As of May 31, 2022, there were 6·9 million reported deaths and 17·2 million estimated deaths from COVID-19, as reported by the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME; throughout the report, we rely on IHME estimates of infections and deaths; note that the IHME gives an estimated range, and we refer to the mean estimate). This staggering death toll is both a profound tragedy and a massive global failure at multiple levels. Too many governments have failed to adhere to basic norms of institutional rationality and transparency, too many people—often influenced by misinformation—have disrespected and protested against basic public health precautions, and the world's major powers have failed to collaborate to control the pandemic.
+As of May 31, 2022, there were 6·9 million reported deaths and 17·2 million estimated deaths from COVID-19, as reported by the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME; throughout the report, we rely on IHME estimates of infections and deaths; note that the IHME gives an estimated range, and we refer to the mean estimate). This staggering death toll is both a profound tragedy and a massive global failure at multiple levels. Too many governments have failed to adhere to basic norms of institutional rationality and transparency, too many people—often influenced by misinformation—have disrespected and protested against basic public health precautions, and the world's major powers have failed to collaborate to control the pandemic.((https://web.archive.org/web/20220914235240/https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(22)01585-9/fulltext))
-The multiple failures of international cooperation include (1) the lack of timely notification of the initial outbreak of COVID-19; (2) costly delays in acknowledging the crucial airborne exposure pathway of SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, and in implementing appropriate measures at national and global levels to slow the spread of the virus; (3) the lack of coordination among countries regarding suppression strategies; (4) the failure of governments to examine evidence and adopt best practices for controlling the pandemic and managing economic and social spillovers from other countries; (5) the shortfall of global funding for low-income and middle-income countries (LMICs), as classified by the World Bank; (6) the failure to ensure adequate global supplies and equitable distribution of key commodities—including protective gear, diagnostics, medicines, medical devices, and vaccines—especially for LMICs; (7) the lack of timely, accurate, and systematic data on infections, deaths, viral variants, health system responses, and indirect health consequences; (8) the poor enforcement of appropriate levels of biosafety regulations in the lead-up to the pandemic, raising the possibility of a laboratory-related outbreak; (9) the failure to combat systematic disinformation; and (10) the lack of global and national safety nets to protect populations experiencing vulnerability.
-This Commission report aims to contribute to a new era of multilateral cooperation based on strong UN institutions to reduce the dangers of COVID-19, forestall the next pandemic, and enable the world to achieve the agreed goals of sustainable development, human rights, and peace that governments are committed to pursue as members of the UN. We address this Commission report to the UN member states, the UN agencies and multilateral institutions, and multilateral processes such as the G20 and the G7. Our aim is to propose guideposts for strengthening the multilateral system to address global emergencies and to achieve sustainable development. In issuing this report, we commend the excellent work of many important international studies that have preceded our own, most notably those from the Independent Panel for Pandemic Preparedness and Response and the G20 High-Level Independent Panel on Financing the Global Commons on Pandemic Preparedness and Response.
-Section 1 of this Commission report provides a conceptual framework for understanding pandemics. Section 2 provides an annotated chronology of the COVID-19 pandemic and thematic findings regarding several issues. Section 3 presents our policy recommendations, particularly around multilateral cooperation centred at WHO to address global health crises, and around investments in preparedness for future health crises through strong national health systems and international financing and technology cooperation with the world's lower-income regions.
-Methodology
-The Lancet COVID-19 Commission was established in July, 2020, with four main themes: developing recommendations on how to best suppress the epidemic; addressing the humanitarian crises arising from the pandemic; addressing the financial and economic crises resulting from the pandemic; and rebuilding an inclusive, fair, and sustainable world.1
-The 28 Commissioners are global experts in public policy, international cooperation, epidemiology and vaccinology, economics and financial systems, sustainability sciences, and mental health. The Commissioners oversaw the work of 12 thematic Task Forces, which met on an ongoing basis (once every 2 weeks or once per month) to support the work of the Commission. These Task Forces included a total of 173 experts. The Commission Secretariat acted as liaison among the Task Forces. The Task Forces published short pieces on their respective areas of focus on the Commission website and in peer-reviewed journals, contributing to the efforts of the overall Commission. ((https://web.archive.org/web/20220914235240/https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(22)01585-9/fulltext))
 ==== Public Reaction ====
 === Washington Post ===
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 But the Lancet report also comes after Sachs, the panel’s chairman, publicly embraced the “lab-leak theory,” which posits that the virus may have escaped from a laboratory and could even have man-made origins, leading to backlash from scientists who warned that his advocacy for the disputed theory would cloud the panel’s work.
-Government officials such as Anthony S. Fauci “are not being honest” about the virus’s origins, Sachs claimed on an August podcast with Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who has spread conspiracy theories about vaccines. Sachs also co-authored a May article in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences that argued U.S. scientists may have had a role in shaping SARS-CoV-2 and called for a probe of the pandemic’s origin through a “bipartisan congressional inquiry with full investigative powers.”((https://web.archive.org/web/20220915010444/https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2022/09/14/lancet-covid-commission-report-who/))
+Government officials such as Anthony S. Fauci “are not being honest” about the virus’s origins, Sachs claimed on an August podcast with [[:Robert F. Kennedy Jr.]], who has spread conspiracy theories about vaccines. Sachs also co-authored a May article in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences that argued U.S. scientists may have had a role in shaping SARS-CoV-2 and called for a probe of the pandemic’s origin through a “bipartisan congressional inquiry with full investigative powers.”((https://web.archive.org/web/20220915010444/https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2022/09/14/lancet-covid-commission-report-who/))
-==== Interview Robert F. Kennedy Jr. ====
-August 25, 2022 - The Defender Show
-‘The Defender Show’ Episode 64: The Origins of COVID-19 With Jeffrey Sachs
-((https://live.childrenshealthdefense.org/shows/the-defender-show/VIDcX7lZl9))
 === BMJ - Childrens Health Defense ===
@@ Line 286: / Line 271: @@
 The statement that you made there is a controversial one. Just to read a couple of quotes from the New York Times in the last year
 ((https://web.archive.org/web/20220909194915/https://www.currentaffairs.org/2022/08/why-the-chair-of-the-lancets-covid-19-commission-thinks-the-us-government-is-preventing-a-real-investigation-into-the-pandemic))
-=== Washington Post ===
-September 14, 2022
-‘Untrustworthy and ineffective’: Panel blasts governments’ covid response
-In long-awaited report, the Lancet Covid-19 Commission also revives disputed claims about virus’s origins
-A global panel of experts Wednesday blamed the World Health Organization, the U.S. government and others for serious failures in coordinating an international response to covid-19, while laying out recommendations to protect against future pandemics and reviving disputed claims about the virus’s origins.
-In a 45-page editorial, the Lancet Covid-19 Commission warned that many governments proved “untrustworthy and ineffective” as the pandemic tore across the world, citing examples such as richer nations hoarding vaccine doses and failing to fund global response efforts, and politicians such as former U.S. president Donald Trump and Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro playing down the virus’s risks, even as hundreds of thousands of their citizens died of it.
-“What we saw — rather than a cooperative global strategy — was basically each country on its own,” Jeffrey Sachs, a Columbia University economist who chaired the commission, told reporters in a briefing convened by the respected medical journal. “National leaders deciding … the strategy and the fates of their countries in an incredibly haphazard way.”
-But the Lancet report also comes after Sachs, the panel’s chairman, publicly embraced the “lab-leak theory,” which posits that the virus may have escaped from a laboratory and could even have man-made origins, leading to backlash from scientists who warned that his advocacy for the disputed theory would cloud the panel’s work.
-Government officials such as Anthony S. Fauci “are not being honest” about the virus’s origins, Sachs claimed on an August podcast ((https://live.childrenshealthdefense.org/shows/the-defender-show/VIDcX7lZl9)) with [[:Robert F. Kennedy Jr.]], who has spread conspiracy theories about vaccines. Sachs also co-authored a May article in the Proceedings of the [[:National Academy of Sciences]] that argued U.S. scientists may have had a role in shaping SARS-CoV-2 and called for a probe of the pandemic’s origin through a “bipartisan congressional inquiry with full investigative powers.”
-Sachs’ advocacy provoked a private, year-long fight with other commission members who say there is far more evidence that the virus has a “natural origin” and was first transmitted to humans from an animal, and who worked to reach a compromise over what the final report would say.
-“Along with a couple of other commissioners, I helped lead efforts to keep the conspiracy nonsense and the whacka-doodle out of the final report,” said [[:Peter Hotez]], a virologist at the [[:Baylor College of Medicine]] and a panel member. “I will be disappointed if covid origin conspiracies wind up detracting from some of the important and legitimate deficiencies in our understandings of how SARS, MERS and covid emerged.”
-((https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2022/09/14/lancet-covid-commission-report-who/))