The GPMB was created in May 2018, driven by the World Bank and the World Health Organization. Following the Ebola epidemic until 2014-2016, and by order of the Secretary-General of the United Nations, the Global Health Crisis Task Force and the Global High Level Health Crisis Response Group were established. The GPMB was born with the objective of following its work. Its functions are to measure the capacity of the world to protect itself from health emergencies, to warn against existing shortcomings and to propose proposals to overcome them to international leaders and institutions. “Especially in view of biological risks such as epidemics and pandemics.”

The committee consists of 15 people, two of whom are primarily responsible: Former Norwegian Prime Minister and former Director-General of the World Health Organization (WHO), Gro Harlem Brundtland, on the one hand, and the Secretary-General of the International Federation of Societies, the Red Cross and Red Ilargierdi, Elhadj As Sy, on the other. The GPMB is therefore an organisation created by the world’s main power points. In September 2019 he published his first report: Annual report on global training in health emergencies.

Detailed pandemic forecast

The representative title of the report is the world at risk. Two are the main ideas that work conveys. The risk of a pandemic is serious and the world is not prepared to deal with it: “We are facing a very real threat of the pandemic. A very deadly pandemic, caused by a respiratory pathogen that can kill between 50 and 80 million people and liquidate nearly 5% of the global economy. Such a global pandemic would be a disaster. It would lead to widespread chaos, instability and insecurity. The world is not ready.” The report also provided in its third paragraph for the origin of this pandemic: “Get ready for the worst: a rapidly expanding pandemic caused by a deadly respiratory pathogen.” As a possible example, he cites “a particularly deadly strain of flu.”

The risk isn't yesterday, and you know it.

The report is September 2019. It may be thought that Governments and international organizations have not had time to take effective risk measures in that short period of time. From reading the report, however, it is clear that the risk has been identified for a long time. Reference is made to various treaties that have been developed at international level in the face of the pandemic and the risks of health emergencies, the first in 2005 – 15 years ago. Between 2011 and 2018, WHO analyzed 1,483 outbreaks in 172 countries. Outbreaks occur more and more often, according to the GPMB, and the trend announces an upward trend: “Diseases that can turn into epidemics such as influenza, severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS), respiratory syndrome in the Middle East (mers), Ebola, puas, plague or yellow fever, among others, announce a new stage: more frequent outbreaks, deplorable effects and potentially rapid spread, increasingly difficult to manage.”

Not taking structural measures

The report outlines both the progress made and the shortcomings that have occurred in recent years. But it is clear that the world authorities have no political will to take effective action: the measures agreed between the achievements and the institutions and programmes created are mentioned; in the shortcomings, the lack of commitment to them. No structural measures are taken: “We have agreed for too long to give cycles of terror and abandonment in the face of pandemics: we strive when a serious threat arises and we quickly forget when the threat is reduced.” The report calls for compliance with specific commitments, resources and deadlines.

The GPMB considers that a universal and quality health system is essential to prevent epidemics. In the European Union, the number of beds per 100,000 inhabitants stood at 574 in 2006. In 2017 the number of beds was 504, 12% less (WHO recommends 800 beds). In the Spanish state, between January and February 2020, the health sector lost 18,320 workers, a year-on-year decline of 4.1%. More than the coronavirus, the health infrastructure is dying: there are not enough places in the ICU, there are not enough respirators, there are not enough professionals, there are no masks...

It is not an accident, it is a logical consequence

The disease is part of life, according to the GPMB, but “a combination of global trends” has transformed the playing field: “Climate change, intensive urbanization, the exponential growth of international travel and forced and voluntary migration increase the risk for all people everywhere.” They are, however, structural characteristics of our predatory capitalist society. Also poverty, excessive medicinal products or intensive industrial exploitation of animals and plants, among other things, which are the strengths of epidemics. This is why, according to the report, these are structural risks that continue to increase the pandemic.

Trust? Citizens

The health emergency and the climate emergency have great similarities: the authorities are well aware of the magnitude of the problem, are well aware of the measures to be taken, but do nothing in that direction. They are now asking us for confidence in a crisis that they say was unpredictable. Give confidence and confidence to all our rights. Here too, ignoring the recommendations of the report – remember who the authors of the report are, all of them outside the anti-revolutionary system. The GPMB says that in the context of a health emergency, and before that, the active participation of the population and communities is essential. Especially children and women. They say it's a matter of effectiveness.

But the village was at home, still and mute, military and police in the middle of the street. Governments have focused their management on the recentralization, militarism and disappearance of formal democracy, including Spanish democracy. The measures have been taken without consultation with anyone, with the political forces of Parliament, let alone with the citizens or with social organisations. The lehendakaris of Navarre and the CAV have normally assumed the imposition of dictatorial logic. On the contrary, self-organised surveillance networks by citizens have been criticised or attempted to deactivate in recent years. They have not even responded to the invitation of the crisis table, proposed by the feminist movement and supported by many social actors. Confidence will be essential both in the coming weeks and in the coming years, yes. But we're going to have to build it down and on the left, horizontally, door-to-door.