The three-page alert noted an obscure incident from across the globe: the Wuhan Municipal Health Commission had reported a mysterious cluster of 27 pneumonia cases on December 31, all linked to South China Seafood City, a wholesale fish and live animal market in Wuhan.
"Would Brussels have been able to go that deep into member states' domestic policies, order schools to close?" asks a former senior European Commission official. "I don’t see that happening. I can’t see that would ever have been feasible." Romano Prodi, the Commission President in the early 2000s, realised there were more rules at EU level for animal health than human health. He told Byrne to be the public face of a new campaign to prioritize consumer health. With a surge in traceability rules - the so-called farm-to-fork strategy - the needs of consumers were to be put above those of producers. The EU set up its own Food Safety Agency, a more modest version of the US Food and Drug Administration.
SARS was more lethal than Covid-19 in that it was more likely to kill, but harder to contract. The Chinese authorities were slow to tell the world about this new virus. As a result, doctors in Canada, treating patients who had flown in from Hong Kong, believed they were simply dealing with pneumonia cases and did not protect themselves.
This Bryne did in record time. The ECDC had been in the pipeline ahead of the arrival of ten new member states in 2004, but SARS sped up its creation. Its doors opened in Stockholm in 2005, with the mandate of "strengthening Europe's defences against infectious diseases." "We weren’t able to get it further on to the agenda than we would have liked," he says today. "Member states, particularly the larger ones, probably believed they had public health well covered at home, and that the value being added by the European Commission [which controlled the ECDC] was a coordinating, advisory role, and that we were doing that well."
In 2013 the EU introduced tighter co-ordination rules and provided for joint procurement of medical equipment and vaccines in an emergency. Yet, it was only towards the end of February and early March that the messaging from Stockholm become more alarmist.
tconnellyRTE Good article
tconnellyRTE You could have just taken notice of all the information that I, amongst others, was sharing over the last two months. Here in Erbil Kurdistan Iraq we weeks ahead of the EU 🇪🇺 curve. Also as Emergency Management experts we were warning people all the time. Very few listened.
tconnellyRTE As soon as it got to Europe Ireland could have closed all airport and repatriated its citizens under strict controls all ports could have been closed to tourists and all imports Screened and sanitized but nooooo keep the flights landing from effected areas and worry later
tconnellyRTE Superb reporting. Thank you.
tconnellyRTE Excellent analysis as always. I see a raft of PhD's coming post Covid 19. You'll be in demand
tconnellyRTE Banned travel to amd from infected countries
tconnellyRTE If Irish media was professional, Connelly Idiot would be sacked! 'That was Leo Thatchar's best speech.' Written by Spin Department which cost us millions!
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