Justine Greening on lessons from the Ebola crisis for the Covid-19 pandemic
Justine Greening was Secretary of State for International Development at the time of the Ebola crisis in Africa, and worked at that time with Professor Chris Whitty who was then DFID's Chief Scientific Officer, and is now the UK's Chief Medical Officer.
She wrote an article a few days ago about how some of the lessons of the Ebola epidemic are relevant to the problems the world is facing today in dealing with Covid-19
Among the things she wrote were the following:
"There are lessons to be learnt from not only how we tackled Ebola but also the wider work focused on limiting the damage on jobs, livelihoods and businesses in Sierra Leone, particularly around the access to short term finance and helping businesses ride out the inevitable downturn. "
"In 2014/15 in Sierra Leone we were clear that it would require a national effort to eradicate the decimating disease that Ebola was. We helped people to save their country. We mass-trained healthcare workers and volunteers to battle Ebola. People selflessly stepped forward to rescue their nation from a fatal disease that extended well beyond the fatality rates of coronavirus, indiscriminatingly taking the lives of people of all ages, healthy and unhealthy.
"Allowing the UK public to be part of the solution on tackling coronavirus, as Sierra Leone’s was with Ebola, is how we can truly deliver a national response that is systematically effective. It’s why a measured, but well-designed public information campaign is vital. The more the general public can successfully and collectively act not only to stay safe, but to avoid putting more pressure on the NHS and food supplies, the less pressure there will be on our wider public services and economy."
You can read the full article on the Social Mobility Pledge website here.
She wrote an article a few days ago about how some of the lessons of the Ebola epidemic are relevant to the problems the world is facing today in dealing with Covid-19
Among the things she wrote were the following:
"There are lessons to be learnt from not only how we tackled Ebola but also the wider work focused on limiting the damage on jobs, livelihoods and businesses in Sierra Leone, particularly around the access to short term finance and helping businesses ride out the inevitable downturn. "
"In 2014/15 in Sierra Leone we were clear that it would require a national effort to eradicate the decimating disease that Ebola was. We helped people to save their country. We mass-trained healthcare workers and volunteers to battle Ebola. People selflessly stepped forward to rescue their nation from a fatal disease that extended well beyond the fatality rates of coronavirus, indiscriminatingly taking the lives of people of all ages, healthy and unhealthy.
"Allowing the UK public to be part of the solution on tackling coronavirus, as Sierra Leone’s was with Ebola, is how we can truly deliver a national response that is systematically effective. It’s why a measured, but well-designed public information campaign is vital. The more the general public can successfully and collectively act not only to stay safe, but to avoid putting more pressure on the NHS and food supplies, the less pressure there will be on our wider public services and economy."
You can read the full article on the Social Mobility Pledge website here.
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