The current global economic, financial, social, political and humanitarian crisis is widely believed to have been caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. This was explicitly stated in a World Health Organization press release on May 1, 2020: “the world is facing unprecedented health, social and economic shocks from COVID-19".

However, Humanistic Outlook Organization (HOO, formerly also: Humanistic Outlook Group) believes that the real cause is a worldwide pandemic of panic and fear, caused in turn by a number of factors, most notably the actions of the World Health Organisation.

Firstly, WHO was incapable to prevent the global spread of a new coronavirus infection and, subsequently, failed to provide a single method of effective treatment and timely development of a vaccine against COVID-19. In addition, WHO’s recommendations on quarantine and other restrictive measures have proved to be totally ineffective and, moreover, have resulted in massive human rights violations around the world.

Irresponsible and alarmist statements disseminated by WHO have contributed and continue to contribute to escalation of this fear. For example, the already mentioned May 1, 2020 press release raised the possibility of new pandemics in the future. On November 16, 2020, the WHO director general suggested that "a vaccine alone will not end the pandemic". On November 19, 2020, the European Regional Director of the WHO stated that "in Europe, a person dies every 17 seconds from COVID-19."

The main negative role, however, according to HOO, was played by the erroneous WHO recommendations of March 25, 2020 on usage of ICD codes in the world practice, according to which the statistics of COVID-19 infected should include patients and deaths for which the laboratory examination was not available or such examination was not conducted at all. The application of these recommendations on the WHO website and in national statistics resulted in horrifying numbers of diseases and deaths from COVID-19, which, naturally, was widely replicated by the mass media around the world.

In this regard, the HOO, in order to end the pandemic of fear proposes the immediate removal of the above-mentioned codes from WHO's International Classification of Diseases” (2019) and "International guidelines for certification and classification (coding) of COVID-19 as cause of death" (2020) according to which the statistics of COVID-19 infections include data of patients and deceased persons for whom the laboratory examination were inconclusive with regard to the infection or no such examination was performed at all.

In this case, the national health authorities would only include in the COVID-19 statistics those cases in which the laboratory test clearly indicated the presence of the SARS-CoV-2 virus, and in the COVID-19 death statistics only those cases in which the autopsy clearly showed that the cause of death was COVID-19 disease.

The result will be objective rather than distorted information about what is happening in the world due to the spread of COVID-19.

It would be advisable, in general, to enshrine in national and international legislation norms prohibiting the dissemination of information that may cause alarmism, panic, fear, and lead to ill-considered actions by the authorities that may result in massive human rights violations. Such norms should apply both to official bodies, as well as to the media, to members of the academic community, and others.

The current pandemic of fear would certainly be ended by the creation of a publicly accessible WHO database for the most dangerous diseases including the number of cases and deaths from them over the past 5 years, which would give a complete and realistic picture of what the real health challenges and threats to humanity are.

However, in HOO's view, the proposed urgent action required by the current situation does not negate the urgent need to initiate a radical reform of the World Health Organization. First and foremost, the founding documents of the WHO must be amended in order to allow the organization to finally achieve the primary goal set forth in Article 1 of its Constitution, “the attainment by all peoples of the highest possible level of health.”

If the WHO desires “to act as the directing and co-ordinating authority on international health work” (Article 2 (a) of the Constitution), the organization must clearly state its accountability for failing to achieve its goals, as well as for specific wrong actions leading to negative consequences in the field of global health. Unfortunately, so far, the WHO Constitution only provides for the safeguarding of its own interests.

According to article 7 of the WHO Constitution, WHO has the right to “If a Member fails to meet its financial obligations to the Organization or in other exceptional circumstances, the Health Assembly may, on such conditions as it thinks proper, suspend the voting privileges and services to which a Member is entitled. The Health Assembly shall have the authority to restore such voting privileges and services.”

Pursuant to Article 2(b) of the WHO Constitution, the activities of the WHO shall “establish and maintain effective collaboration with the United Nations, specialized agencies, governmental health administrations, professional groups and such other organizations as may be deemed appropriate;” and under paragraph (g) of Article 2 “stimulate and advance work to eradicate epidemics, endemics and other diseases” however, in practice this is not the case. In this regard, the HOO considers it crucial for the WHO not only to make decisions, but also to closely monitor and incorporate comments and recommendations from a wide range of doctors, biologists, immunologists and other specialists from member states, and to be as open as possible to consider initiatives by and collaborate with non-governmental organisations.

If the activities of the WHO are not properly reformed in the near future, then it seems that the issue of its dissolution and the creation of a new international organization in the field of health will become relevant. According to the HOO, such an organization would have to unite, on a voluntary basis, the efforts of the most authoritative scientists and specialists who, in contrast to the WHO officials, would unselfishly be interested in their work. The new organization and all its actions should be as open and transparent as possible.

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