The Zero Covid Alliance
From the start of this pandemic, we have heard world leaders and public health officials say that ‘we all need to work together to end this pandemic’. However, we did not (always) see the collaboration between countries that is needed to properly understand, and anticipate to, the situation in a specific country.
As of the 5th of June, countries are already celebrating the near-end of the pandemic. To us it’s always been clear that the social, economic and cultural effects of the pandemic will cast a long shadow into the future. Covid-19 has uncovered many injustices within society. The sooner we begin to understand and unpack that, the sooner we can start working on repairing these injustices.
While some may think that the Zero Covid Alliance is only about advocating for a change of strategy, nothing could be further from the truth. Our partners cover a variety of topics and approaches, and a change of strategy is only one of them. Some work on trying to inspire top-down policy changes, while others work on the community level, for example by providing information and support to those communities that are harder to reach and/or don’t have the means to get to a testing/vaccination centre.
We support Long Covid patients in multiple countries and help them raise awareness and advocate for treatment options as well as initiate research into this debilitating disease. We believe Long Covid is a true health crisis that is being overlooked and/or dismissed in many countries around the world. Our #LongCovid partners work tirelessly to help those affected in their own countries, but also continuously think of new ways to reach and support patients in countries that lack a support system, both medically as well as financially.
This pandemic also laid bare serious shortcomings within the educational system. Parents have been pressured to send their children to unsafe schools, because the necessary measures to protect children, their teachers and parents from Covid-19 infection weren’t implemented (in time). Their right to choose what level of risk they found acceptable for their kids was taken from them, and in some countries, parents were prosecuted by the state for trying to keep their children safe.
Because of this, parents have banded together to advocate for proper safety measures in schools. We support 13 school groups from all over the world in their goal to provide a safe learning environment for children, both during the pandemic and after. Some of these groups work directly with governments on improving guidelines, while others have focused on improving situations in schools on a local level, by providing accessible information, implementing a robust testing system and improving air quality by installing air filtration systems and CO2 monitors.
Now, as the situation is improving in some countries, the focus starts to shift to social and economic recovery. Some of our partners, such as Zero Covid DACh and Europe, a patient put a focus on global solidarity and responsibility, both during the pandemic and after. They campaign for the waiver of intellectual property rights on Covid19 vaccines and the sharing of mRNA vaccine technology under non-exclusive licenses to enable the expansion of vaccine production around the world. This is part of their main campaign that focuses on a solidary approach to this pandemic.
Zero Covid Alliance is supporting their partner organisations in all of their activities, from Covid responses to community support & recovery, because..