Editor’s Note: Bradley Blankenship is a Prague-based journalist, political analyst and freelance reporter. The article reflects the views of the author and not necessarily the views of CGTN.

On May 12, an independent WHO panel released a damning report on the COVID-19 pandemic, accusing individual governments and the WHO itself of what it said was a preventable disaster. According to the report, the COVID-19 pandemic “is the worst combined health and socio-economic crisis in living memory”, and the document notes serious neglect on the part of some governments.

In the Czech Republic, where I currently live, we have experienced one of the highest per capita COVID-19 death and infection rates in the world. Hospitals were at their maximum capacity just a few months ago. People’s lives and sense of security have been uprooted thanks to the virus itself and the nearly five months of related restrictions. In addition to this incalculable damage, the country faces an imminent public finance problem due to the large budget deficit accumulated by the pandemic.

In my home country, the United States, an estimated 575,000 Americans lost their lives – the highest death toll in the world, and some experts have even recently suggested that the number may even be around 905,000. Although economic forecasts now appear optimistic, historic inequalities only widened during the pandemic.

According to researchers at the Harris School of Public Policy at the University of Chicago and the Department of Economics at the University of Notre Dame, poverty reached a pandemic peak – even with help from the federal government – in the month of March of this year, at a time when things are supposed to improve. better.

Black poverty was close to double the overall poverty rate at 21.2%, child poverty climbed to 17.4% and the poverty rate rose to 22.2% among those who had only a high school diploma or less. Yet at the same time, according to a March report from the Institute for Policy Studies, billionaires increased their wealth by 54% during the pandemic.

The country’s media and politicians are lamenting that the country’s enhanced federal unemployment insurance (UI) could encourage people to stay home rather than re-enter the workforce. Without contesting this particular question, even if it is true, the choice to allow workers to be unemployed and not to institute, for example, a government subsidized leave program was made in Washington.

Overall, as is also the conclusion of the WHO independent panel, many developed countries have shamefully dropped the ball in handling the COVID-19 pandemic. This exercise failed for some countries which show serious structural deficits in the performance of basic tasks, the most obvious being disease management and pandemic preparedness – but also the equitable management of their economies. Moreover, it shows a serious ideological rot that has in a way laid the foundations for this abdication of leadership.

This is perhaps most evidenced by the fact that most of the governments that have failed so badly have refused to shoulder their responsibilities and have turned their finger on China, the country where the first outbreak of COVID-19 – though ‘It remains to be seen whether COVID-19 actually originated in the country, criticizing China’s response despite its extraordinary success.

Speaking to Novara Media in February, Richard Horton, editor-in-chief of the well-respected Lancet, blamed this dynamic primarily on sinophobia and the fact that some Western leaders just don’t want to admit their failures. He said Western countries actually owed a “debt of gratitude” to the doctors, nurses and scientists in China for quickly providing details to the international community.

On the question of China’s response, the results speak for themselves. If China hadn’t put life first, there could be millions of deaths and an economic downturn that would likely have endangered the global economy.

Following the independent group’s report, it is time for governments, especially Western governments, to put ideology aside in the interests of public health and social fairness. While this part of the world is starting to believe it has turned the corner for the worst of the pandemic, the fact remains that the pandemic is raging in other parts of the world – and if we’ve learned anything so far is that none of us are safe until we are all safe.

In addition, external issues – things like increased demands for childcare due to school closures, postponement of undiagnosed illnesses due to medical examinations, and political crises resulting from the pandemic – are also in play. catching up in the developed world. Given their failure to tackle the pandemic so far, Western governments should ask themselves how to deal with it in a more reasonable way going forward. Blaming China will not help us.

(If you would like to contribute and have specific expertise, please contact us at opinions@cgtn.com.)