Learning from COVID-19 to build a resilient future
Published: 24 Jul 2020
The “COVID-19: Updates from Singapore” weekly webinar series is a forum for leading clinicians, scientists, public health officials and policy makers to share insights from their fields of study. The sixteenth edition of the webinar was held on Thursday, 23 July.
Professor Richard Horton, Editor-in-Chief of The Lancet, Co-Chair of the Independent Expert Review Group at the World Health Organisation (WHO) and Honorary Professor at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine and University of Oslo, was the guest speaker for this week’s webinar session. In a Question-and-Answer format moderated by Associate Professor David Allen, Prof Horton fielded questions about his responsibilities as Editor-in-Chief of The Lancet during this unprecedented time of a global pandemic, before sharing his perspectives on how various entities ought to learn from past mistakes and work together to move towards a singular purpose of addressing the COVID-19 pandemic, to build a more resilient future for the global community.
Prof Horton posits that since January, it has been a continuous race to connect the most accurate and reliable knowledge to the COVID-19 response. The scientific writing community presents itself as an effective and efficient peer-review system, while offering preliminary judgement about what is taking place and suggesting recommendations on the next course of action that countries should take during this pandemic.
When asked to comment about the recent handling of the COVID-19 pandemic, Prof Horton was quick to emphasise that the world has been plunged into a state of political instability which is difficult to navigate. The xenophobia towards China, zero leadership from the United States and a collapse in public trust in many governments, particularly in Europe, have had a huge role to play in the mismanagement of this pandemic. He commended the quick response from China, which did everything in her power to send warning signals. Yet, the political world leaders, medical advisors and science policymakers still took far too long to recognise the seriousness of this virus, hindering the COVID-19 response.
Prof Horton commented that scientific literacy is uncommon among political classes, such that there is a need to have a mix of political leaders with backgrounds in science to be able to interpret and understand quantitative data when it is presented. Citing Singapore and New Zealand as countries which have been relatively successful in containing the pandemic, he said that the advantage of small countries is their close proximity between the medical community and political class that allows a more holistic, coordinated response towards the pandemic.
Regarding vaccine nationalism, Prof Horton was quick to discourage governments who are already placing bids for potential vaccines. He called for the need to have a mechanism in place for countries to come together to agree on a framework for the purchasing, procurement and equitable distribution of therapeutics or vaccines to the populations that need them most. Yet, there has been no convening of such global assemblies to discuss such priorities since the start of this pandemic.
WATCH: COVID-19 Updates from Singapore: Webinar 16 | Prof Richard Horton
Tune in next week on 30 July 2020 as we hear from guest speaker Dr Chikwe Ihekweazu, Chief Executive Officer of the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control, who will be sharing more on the successes and challenges of managing the pandemic in Nigeria thus far.
