In 2008, a crisis that began in the financial system triggered a tsunami throughout the global economy. The story is well known. World leaders, led by President Obama of America and Gordon Brown of Britain, realised that the international architecture was ill-prepared for a storm of this sort. They strengthened it by reforming the G20 group of nations, putting more money into the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and pledging to do “whatever it took” to save the wider global economy from a deeper depression.
Contrast this with the lack of global leadership which has marked the response to the coronavirus pandemic. The White House is occupied by a narcissist, Donald Trump, who has prevaricated and flip-flopped from one policy decision to another and clearly does not believe either in scientific evidence or in multilateral cooperation.
The European Union was ill-prepared and slow to respond, finally squeezing out a rescue deal, after fraught talks, which is far smaller than recommended by the European Central Bank. The ECB itself has exercised belated economic support. Member states have acted unilaterally by closing their borders. Only Germany – with its excellently prepared health service, testing systems and adequate provision of intensive care beds – under Chancellor Merkel, a scientist by background, appeared ready for the gathering storm and offered help to neighbouring EU countries.
The rest of the world has presented a mixed, more worrying sight. In South America, Brazil is led by President Bolsonaro, an avowed COVID-19 denier. In Eastern Europe and the Far East, two unreliable authoritarian leaders, President Putin of Russia and President Xi of China for whom power eclipses other considerations, are playing a mischievous game of disinformation for narrow nationalistic reasons. In India, an ill-planned decree by Prime Minister Modi to impose enforced lockdown is leading to a humanitarian disaster.
The salient lessons for the future are now emerging. The only successful way to fight a pandemic is a coordinated response where countries share resources, information and strategies to halt its spread. How Britain, Italy and Spain have faced COVID-19 could hardly be more different from Taiwan, Singapore or South Korea. We are discovering that, like 2008, the global health infrastructure simply wasn’t prepared.
The World Health Organisation (WHO), for all that it is staffed by dedicated doctors and civil servants, was woefully underprepared and underpowered to confront a global pandemic of this magnitude. Rather like the IMF before 2008, it had for decades languished in relative obscurity. Like many United Nations bodies, it had fallen victim to mission creep – ‘Stop Smoking’, ‘Fight Loneliness’ – and had neglected its core mission to be the institution of last resort in a health crisis no country can fight alone.
The upshot has been that in the early weeks of the crisis WHO was slow to declare a global public health emergency. Despite the excellent work done by its doctors and officials, it is clear that the institution lacked the influence and firepower to speak truth to power, for example to the US for its dilatory response to the health emergency, or to China for its fearsome faults in the early weeks of the disease.
One of the key lessons for the future must be that WHO should be the ultimate authority and resource for global health security. It should be given the funds and a new independence to fight future pandemics – of which COVID-19 will not be the last. Like 2008, this is a moment for world leaders to reinforce global institutions.