ABC News
The world was "woefully" unprepared for the COVID-19 pandemic, and remains vulnerable to the next major "catastrophic" health crisis, a panel created by the World Health Organization concluded. "COVID-19 is the 21st century's Chernobyl moment — not because a disease outbreak is like a nuclear accident, but because it has shown so clearly the gravity of the threat to our health and well-being," experts from the Independent Panel for Pandemic Preparedness and Response wrote in a report, entitled "COVID-19: Make it the Last Pandemic," released on Wednesday. The panel, which is led by former New Zealand Prime Minister and UNDP chief Helen Clark and former Liberian President and Nobel Peace Prize winner Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, urged immediate action to avert the next pandemic, or else "we will condemn the world to successive catastrophes."