Translation in Dansk, عربي, 中文,Deutsche, Español, Français, Italiano, Portugues...etc.: https://sites.google.com/site/citizensagainstdisease/home

The COVID-19 pandemic has brought to light the interconnected nature of today’s world and the need for global action in times of crisis to ensure collective safety. We ask for governments across the globe to take steps at global and national level to learn from this pandemic and to prepare a response at global level for any future crisis. Our key requests are outlined below:

• Identifying diseases early allows for rapid and effective containment: doctors and nurses will always be at the forefront of our battle against diseases and it is key to give them a voice to alert their counterparts and society. We ask for a formal system of alerts to be set up between medical professionals who become aware of such a crisis. That such a communication system be devoid of political influence and that no health professional, who to the best of their knowledge brings a health concern to light, be ever prosecuted.
• Establish a global strategy to deal with pandemics: We call on leaders to define a global strategy with mechanisms to be activated in case of pandemics. Institutions, like the WHO, shall be reinforced in their role to coordinate the crisis with support of health experts and provide guidance to national governments on the steps to take to deal with future cases. Such a strategy should include various routes transmission, be scientifically based, consider the need for distribution and manufacturing of key health equipment and be irrespective of geographical origin of a disease.
• Facilitate global policies aimed at ensuring collective safety and access to health care: Agreeing on minimum requirements to ensure collective safety is imperative to guiding countries in case of health crisis and ensuring safety of all. For example, ensuring sick leave in such crisis scenario allows employees to remain home and not spread the virus to others. Global targets should be set, to transition all countries to provide life-saving healthcare to citizens during a period of crisis, without undue impact on the personal finances of a citizen. Although this is a difficult aim in some regions of the world, we call for targets to be set based on individual national circumstances with the aim of protecting some of the most vulnerable people on our planet.