Read on Twitter
several folk today said ”covid isnt a pandemic, WHO cant declare a pandemic, this is only an epidemic and legal measures illegitimate.” Several fellow DsPh have been asked this too. And numerous students doung science projects. So heres a thread rather
It is essentially meaningless to say WHO cant declare a padnemic and meaningless to say we’re not one. I explain below. There are two separate issues here. First what international global health law says and secondly what science says. Lets deal with both briefly
On 30 Jan 2020 the WHO declared sars-cov-2 to be a “public health emergency of global concern” . Under the International Health Regulations (IHR) That does have standing in international law for 196 states https://www.lexology.com/library/detail.aspx?g=c2edb745-5f18-4cc7-8d13-00acf8ebdf10
This declaration does have binding implications for 196 states who have signed up to them, even if perhaps more honoured in the breach than the observance in some cases. A good paper here . states do have discretion within this legalky binding framework https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(20)30373-1/fulltext
So we are, lawfully, in a “public health emergency of international concern”. A useful background paper is provided by the library of congress https://www.loc.gov/law/help/health-emergencies/who.php
This paper explains the international health regulations as a legal tool quite well https://www.mpg.de/14697255/international-law-in-the-times-of-the-coronavirus
And this paper on international governance in global health emergencies is also very useful https://www.asil.org/insights/volume/24/issue/3/international-governance-global-health-pandemics as well as this paper https://scholarship.law.georgetown.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=3282&context=facpub
Pandemic is more a scientific term than a legal one. The @ChathamHouse blog probably set this out best when it said WHO declared an emergency snd then characterised it later as a pandemic. the former is a legal determination, the latter a scientific one https://www.chathamhouse.org/2020/05/coronavirus-public-health-emergency-or-pandemic-does-timing-matter
Some useful scientific background on pandemic criteria here https://www.who.int/bulletin/volumes/89/7/11-088815/en/ and a good special issue of a legal journal on pandemic law here https://brill.com/view/journals/ihls/11/2/ihls.11.issue-2.xml
At the same time, national and regional legal frameworks come into play such as the EU system. So state legal systems not just international ones matter , though views differ on their effectivenes two papers here https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3561650 and here https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0168851017302221
Another interesting legal take here https://law.emory.edu/eilr/recent-developments/volume-35/essays/state-obligations-international-law-pandemics.html
So, albeit imperfect, we do have an international law framework for major health emergencies and they do bind. We are in one. Debating about whether this is an epidemic or a pandemic is a bit pointless legally because IHR has been invoked And scientific criteria for pandemic met.
people who say were not in a pandemic seem to think -wrongly- the definition means something legally Or about severity of spread. Pandemic definitions are very much about geographical spread, not only severity. Again see here https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/2020/02/how-coronavirus-could-become-pandemic-and-why-it-matters/
Pandemic is a more scientific judgement as these useful articles make clear here https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-02-26/what-it-means-if-the-coronavirus-is-called-a-pandemic-quicktake snd here
The World Bank pandemic financing criteria also use bith geographic spread and severity as de facto criteria . https://www.worldbank.org/en/topic/pandemics/brief/pandemic-emergency-financing-facility
And as the bbc latest status report shows, we are de facto in a pandemic https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-51235105
So as a matter of law we are in a health emergency and a matter of fact a pandemic . Good piece from @Nat_Geographic4 explains this https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/2020/02/how-coronavirus-could-become-pandemic-and-why-it-matters/
As for challenges to the lawfulness of coronavirus regulations in England, the Court of Appeal has rejected them https://www.bailii.org/cgi-bin/format.cgi?doc=/ew/cases/EWCA/Civ/2020/1605.html&query=(%22CoRonaviRus%22 worth reading in detail to get the various nuances.
Several people have sought to claim its significant that UK govt science advisers say epidemic on tv more than pandemic. lots of people use these words interchangeably. None of that changes either the WHO legal declaration or its determination. To claim so is to clutch at straws
For all those reasons, it is therefore meaningless to say who cant declare a pandemic and meaninglessh to say we’re in an eoidemic now a pandemic.
10m
For all those reasons, it is therefore meaningless to say who cant declare a pandemic and meaningless to say we’re in an epidemic not a pandemic.
For all those reasons, it is therefore meaningless to say who cant declare a pandemic and meaningless to say we’re in an epidemic not a pandemic.
