New president signs executive order to withdraw the US from the World Health Organization - January 20, 2025, formal withdrawal January 22, 2026

[sharon sanders]

In the search for truth we always try to post all sides. Here is a response from WHO to post #35. X does not allow copy/paste of photos etc. Please see original at Dr. Kerkhove's X link below:


Maria Van Kerkhove
@mvankerkhove
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Maria Van Kerkhove
@mvankerkhove
·

Maria Van Kerkhove
@mvankerkhove
#COVID19: six years on

1/ Six years ago today,
@WHO declared the novel coronavirus outbreak a Public Health Emergency of International Concern (PHEIC)- the highest level of alarm under international health law at the time This pandemic has changed global health forever.
12:46 PM · Jan 30, 2026
·​
Jan 30
2/ Some still say @WHO was “too slow” to declare a PHEIC. Much of this rhetoric reflects hindsight bias and politicization. Decisions were made with the information available at the time as events unfolded — Context is important.
From who.int Maria Van Kerkhove
@mvankerkhove
·
Jan 30
3/ A few impt dates for context:
31 Dec 19: @WHO picks up the signal from Wuhan
1 Jan 20: WHO asks China for more info and sets up an Incident Management Support Team
2 Jan: WHO notifies #GOARN partners of the situation
3 Jan: China provides info to WHO on the cluster Maria Van Kerkhove
@mvankerkhove
·
Jan 30
4 Jan:@WHO provides info on social media
5 Jan: WHO formally notifies countries (EIS & DON)
9-12 Jan: WHO publishes comprehensive technical guidance
13 Jan: Thailand reports first case
14 Jan: Detailed update from WHO @ UN press conference
unognewsroom.org
UNOG Bi-weekly press briefing 14 January 2020 - audio.mp3
Alessandra Vellucci, Director of the United Nations Information Service in Geneva, chaired the briefing, which was attended by the spokespersons for the United Nations Conference on Trade and... Maria Van Kerkhove
@mvankerkhove
·
Jan 30
15 Jan: Second case reported outside China
20 Jan: @WHODG @DrTedros announces he is convening an Emergency Committee (EC) under IHR. There are three reported cases outside China.
22-23 Jan: WHO EC meets and is divided as to whether situation represents a PHEIC Maria Van Kerkhove
@mvankerkhove
·
Jan 30
26 Jan: Senior WHO delegation led by @DrTedros travels to China to learn first hand about the outbreak & meet senior Chinese leaders
29 Jan: DG announces he is reconvening EC
30 Jan: DG declares a PHEIC. There are fewer than 100 reported cases outside of China, no deaths Maria Van Kerkhove
@mvankerkhove
·
Jan 30
4/@WHO
takes criticism seriously & makes changes. Multiple independent reviews have guided reforms, incl a strengthened IHR and a new level of alert: “pandemic emergency,” and the adoption of the WHO Pandemic Agreement Systems evolve because we learn
From who.int Maria Van Kerkhove
@mvankerkhove
·
Jan 30
5/ Six years on, #COVID19 has not gone away. SARS-CoV-2 continues to circulate globally, evolve, reinfect, and cause severe disease & #LongCOVID. We all still feel the broader impacts of these 6 years.
@nextstrain
https://data.who.int/dashboards/covid19/cases
Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus and 9 others Maria Van Kerkhove
@mvankerkhove
·
Jan 30
6/ Over time, my messages have evolved as the situation changed: • 2020–21 was about emergency response- all hands on deck • 2022–23: transition & warnings • 2024–25: vigilance & preparedness My message for 2026 is simple: do not become complacent to the threats we face.​

Maria Van Kerkhove
@mvankerkhove
·
Jan 30
7/ Early on in the pandemic, we saw how fast a novel virus can spread—but also how powerful science, collaboration, and data sharing can be when aligned. At the same time, inequities slowed progress and cost lives. Ending the emergency in 2023 did not mean the end of the threat.​

Jan 30
8/ Effective tools exist for #COVID19 and other pathogens with epidemic and pandemic potential: • updated vaccines • effective treatments • surveillance systems • ventilation & prevention measures But uptake—especially among those most at risk—remains too low in many places Maria Van Kerkhove
@mvankerkhove
·
Jan 30
9/@WHO’s updated #COVID19 strategy focuses on protection, integration, and preparedness — embedding COVID prevention and care into routine health systems, not treating it as yesterday’s problem.
From who.int Maria Van Kerkhove
@mvankerkhove
·
Jan 30
10/Disease surveillance and the sharing of information really matter. Reduced testing and reporting have created growing data gaps, making it harder to detect changes early and act quickly. We shouldn’t dismantle systems we built — we should strengthen them. Maria Van Kerkhove
@mvankerkhove
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Jan 30
11/ A critical part of the six-years of COVID is post-COVID-19 condition (#LongCOVID). Long-term symptoms affect millions and must be central to how we assess impact, recovery, and preparedness.
who.int
Coronavirus disease (COVID-19): Post COVID-19 condition
Most people who develop COVID-19 fully recover, but current evidence suggests approximately 10–20% of people experience a variety of mid and long-term effects after they recover from their initial... Maria Van Kerkhove
@mvankerkhove
·
Jan 30
12/ Health workers, public health professionals, scientists, and responders have carried an extraordinary burden — often at great personal cost. We owe them more than thanks. This image haunts me and drives me to do more every day.
Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus and 5 others Maria Van Kerkhove
@mvankerkhove
·
Jan 30
13/ Six years on, what we know is clear: • #COVID19 isn’t gone • Vaccines reduce severe disease • Surveillance saves time — and lives • Preparedness and readiness must be continuous Maria Van Kerkhove
@mvankerkhove
·
Jan 30
14/ Our asks for 2026: Protect those most at risk Invest in #LongCOVID research & care Prepare before the next crisis, not after The work continues.​

 

[Pathfinder]

Hat tip to Sharon

Excerpt from the post above:

Jan 30
2/ Some still say @WHO was “too slow” to declare a PHEIC. Much of this rhetoric reflects hindsight bias and politicization. Decisions were made with the information available at the time as events unfolded — Context is important.
From who.int Maria Van Kerkhove
@mvankerkhove
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W.H.O. announces panelists to join the Independent Panel for Pandemic Preparedness and Response - September 3, 2020

September 4, 2020, 06:40 PM

Panelists Named to Join the Independent Panel for Pandemic Preparedness and Response​
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The Co-Chairs were appointed by the WHO Director-General to lead an impartial, independent and comprehensive evaluation of the international health response to COVID-19 coordinated by WHO, in accordance with the request in a resolution at the 73rd World Health Assembly.​​
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The Panel is expected to submit their report to the 74th World Health Assembly in May 2021.
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https://flutrackers.com/forum/forum...ic-preparedness-and-response-september-3-2020
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Main Report & accompanying work
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​On May 12 2021, the Independent Panel presented its findings and recommendations for action to curb the COVID-19 pandemic and to ensure that any future infectious disease outbreak does not become another catastrophic pandemic.

This was the culmination of eight months of work. Beginning in September 2020, the Independent Panel systematically, rigorously and comprehensively examined why COVID-19 became a global health and socio-economic crisis.

The result included the main report, together with fifteen background papers including the Panel’s authoritative chronology, a narrative report, a report reflecting the voices heard in townhall meetings, and multimedia materials.
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Main Report

1. The main report presents the Panel’s findings and recommendations.

COVID-19: Make it the Last Pandemic – PDF, 5.1 MB Download
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https://theindependentpanel.org/mainreport/
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Excerpt from the main report (page 24+):
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4.2.2 The declaration of a public health emergency of international concern

A Public Health Emergency of International Concern (PHEIC) is the loudest alarm that can be sounded by the WHO Director-General. The IHR (2005) mandate that in determining whether an event constitutes a PHEIC, the WHO Director-General consider the advice of an Emergency Committee convened for the purpose and drawn from a roster of experts maintained by WHO. The affected State is invited to present its views to the Emergency Committee. If a PHEIC is recommended, the WHO Director-General has the final authority to make a declaration, taking all information into account. The meeting of the WHO IHR Emergency Committee called to discuss the outbreak on 22–23 January was split on whether to recommend that the outbreak be declared a PHEIC. The Committee met again the following week when the Director-General returned from a mission to China. Following the Committee’s recommendation, the WHO Director-General declared that the outbreak constituted a PHEIC on 30 January. At that time there were 98 cases in 18 countries outside China(33, 34). In the statement from the Emergency Committee reported by the Director-General, it was specified that no travel restrictions were recommended, based on the information available. Reference to the PHEIC outbreak was included in the 3 February 2020 report by the WHO Director-General to the WHO Executive Board(35). On 4 February in an oral briefing to Member States he reported that there had been 20 471 confirmed cases and 425 deaths reported in China, and a total of 176 cases in 24 other countries. The IHR (2005) do not use or define the term “pandemic”. The most extensive use of the term by WHO is in relation to the detailed framework and guidelines for pandemic influenza, although even there the distinction between seasonal and pandemic influenza is not clear-cut (36). As COVID-19 spread during February 2020, and there was an apparent lack of understanding that declaring a PHEIC was to sound the loudest possible alarm, there was an increasing clamour for WHO to describe the situation as a pandemic. Eventually, stating that it was alarmed by the extent of both the spread of the disease and the level of inaction in response, WHO went on to characterize COVID-19 as a global pandemic on 11 March 2020, when there were a reported 118 000 cases in 114 countries (37). The Panel has considered this sequence of events between December 2019 and the declaration of a PHEIC on 30 January 2020 in detail in order to assess what could potentially have been done differently and whether changes are needed in the international system of alert.

The IHR (2005) are designed to ensure that countries have the capacity to detect and notify health events. They require that, when disease or deaths above expected levels are detected, essential information is reported immediately to subnational or national levels. If urgent events, defined as having “serious public health impact and/or unusual or unexpected nature with high potential for spread” are detected, they must be reported immediately to the national level and assessed within 48 hours. Events assessed to warrant a potential PHEIC must be reported to WHO within 24 hours of assessment, via the IHR national focal point. Events with PHEIC potential must meet at least two of four conditions, namely: (1) have serious public health impact; (2) be an unusual or unexpected event; (3) have significant risk of international spread; and (4) carry significant risk of travel or trade restrictions.(a) The Panel’s view is that the outbreak in Wuhan is likely to have met the criteria to be declared a PHEIC by the time of the first meeting of the Emergency Committee on 22 January 2020. While WHO was rapid and assiduous in its early dissemination of the outbreak alert to countries around the world, its approach in presenting the nature and level of risk was based on its established principles guided by the International Health Regulations of issuing advice on the balance of existing evidence. While WHO advised of the possibility of human-to-human transmission in the period until it was confirmed, and recommended measures that health workers should take to prevent infection, the Panel’s view is that it could also have told countries that they should take the precaution of assuming that human-to-human transmission was occurring. Given what is known about respiratory infections, there is a case for applying the precautionary principle and assuming that in any outbreak caused by a new pathogen of this type, sustained humanto-human transmission will occur unless the evidence specifically indicates otherwise. The Panel’s conclusion is that the alert system does not operate with sufficient speed when faced with a fast-moving respiratory pathogen, that the legally binding IHR (2005) are a conservative instrument as currently constructed and serve to constrain rather than facilitate rapid action and that the precautionary principle was not applied to the early alert evidence when it should have been. The Panel’s view is that the definition of a new suspected outbreak with pandemic potential needs to be refined, as different classes of pathogen have very different implications for the speed with which they are likely to spread and their implications for the type of response needed.

4.2.3 Two worlds at different speeds

The chronology of the early events in raising the alarm about COVID-19 show two worlds operating at very different speeds. One is the world of fast-paced information and data-sharing. Open digital platforms for epidemic surveillance, in which WHO plays a leading role, constantly update and share outbreak information. Digital tools are now core elements in disease surveillance and alert, sifting through vast quantities of instantly available information. Epidemic surveillance operates symbiotically with information exchange—the constant pace of news, gossip and rumour that characterize social media and can be mined for epidemic-relevant signals. Open data on the information and collaboration platforms central to scientific exchange also, by their nature, enable near-instant global availability of information. The other world is that of the slow and deliberate pace with which information is treated under the IHR (2005), with their step-by-step confidentiality and verification requirements and threshold criteria for the declaration of a PHEIC, with greater emphasis on action that should not be taken, rather than on action that should. The critical issue for this two-speed world is that viruses, especially highly transmissible respiratory pathogens, operate at the faster pace, not the slower one. The Panel’s conclusion is that surveillance and alert systems at national, regional and global levels must be redesigned, bringing together their detection functions—picking up signals of potential outbreaks—and their relay functions—ensuring that signals are verified and acted upon. Both must be able to function at near instantaneous speed. This will require the consistent application of digital tools, including the incorporation of machine learning, together with fast-paced verification and audit functions. It will also require a commitment to open data principles as the foundation of a system that can adapt and correct itself.
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