Scientific Breakthroughs in COVID-19 Response

One particular topic that stood out in the 2nd day of the conference was the talk done by Gwendolyn Pang. Gwendolyn is the current Deputy Regional Director for Asia Pacific and Head of East Asia, International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent (IFRC).

Gwendolyn gave us a talk on how they are responding as a global organization to the pandemic brought about by COVID-19. She is based in Kuala Lumpur in Malaysia and started her talk by giving us an overview of what they do.

The International Federation of the Red Cross (IFRC) and the Red Crescent

The IFRC has 192 member national Red Cross and Red Crescent organizations all over the world. They work through their national Red Cross societies in different countries, in both humanitarian and emergency response. Their headquarter is based in Geneva, Switzerland.

IFRC has regional offices, and from the five regional offices, Gwendolyn represents the Asia Pacific Region. In the Asia Pacific---they are in 38 countries that have National Red Cross and Red Crescent.

The focus of their work is on health, specifically in health emergencies like the pandemic brought about by COVID-19.

They have first aid, blood services, organ donation. They also work in water sanitation, committee health and primary health care. Apparently, anything that has to do about health programs that you can think of, they have it. That includes disaster response and risk reduction work. They are actually very strong in responding to emergencies and disasters.

IFRC also supports resilience building. This is done during and after a disaster. They also work strongly on population movements especially in light of the Myanmar crisis, the population movement in Cox’s Bazar in Bangladesh and also, other identity and migration issues.

They also provide support for poverty alleviation, advocacy and diplomacy work with the government in different countries, and anything you can think about in humanitarian and also development work, they are actually contributing a lot to that too.

IFRC Response to COVID-19

So this pandemic, this COVID-19, is a global operation for IFRC and also a local response for them. Global, because, a number of countries in the whole world are responding to this emergency or this crisis.

They are responding at the local level, at the committee level, where they work with the committees, and globally because they have presence in almost all committees anywhere you go. So this is both a global response and also a local response for IFRC.

According to Gwendolyn, they are also going through a lot in terms of changes in IFRC.

As IFRC goes through this unprecedented crisis over time since the beginning of COVID-19 pandemic, they have had more than 179 million cases of COVID-19 and more than 3.8 million loss of life.

Currently, they have 25 million active cases of COVID-19 across the globe and they are still witnessing close to 300,000 new cases, and more than 6,000 new deaths everyday. This is far from being over. It really calls for everyone to really work together to fight against this pandemic and put an end to it.

The presence of the variants is of great concern now. It is further complicating the situation, as these variants are more infectious and can make people even more sick, and Gwendolyn has seen that, especially in India in the recent second wave.

In June alone, according to Gwendolyn, they have generated reports in the IFRC, where they can actually see the new cases, new deaths. How they monitor numbers and figures are very important. That is the global picture.

Gwendolyn mentioned the Asia Pacific region. The Asia Pacific Region has been the first epicenter of COVID-19. Across the region, the pandemic ranges from widespread community transmission to countries that were believed to have zero cases.

The recent surge of COVID-19 across South Asia has proven no one is safe until everyone is safe. The current wave of COVID-19 has been devastating to the region, particularly across India and Nepal, and with the indication that the threat is growing even as the situation is looking better in other regions.

Gwendolyn pointed out that in the region, especially in the Asia Pacific, they have more than 38 million cases and more than 500,000 deaths. They are now also seeing rising cases in Indonesia, especially in Southeast Asia, in Indonesia. In the Philippines, it’s actually fluctuating on and off in terms of the number of infections.

Themes of Operational Response and Priorities

Gwendolyn presented slides showing data on their operational response worldwide.

Red Cross globally, works on three themes.

The first one is on sustaining health and water, sanitation and hygiene and then we also added the COVID vaccine there. So anything around that, the Red Cross will support and work.

The Red Cross also works on the secondary impact of the COVID-19 which is addressing the socio-economic impact, in which Gwendolyn believes the private sector can play a big role in boosting and really supporting their priorities in addressing the economic impacts caused by this pandemic.

The third is, the continuing response on the first wave, second wave and the new waves to come, IFRC is ensuring that they strengthen the Red Cross and Red Crescent societies in terms of how they are able to respond optimally and adapt to the new context or ways of working.

The COVID-19 pandemic poses a global threat and has resulted in the largest global economic crisis since the Second World War.

In the absence of population immunity to this disease, effective treatments, extensive lockdowns and related sanitary and social distancing measures are needed. This involves a high socio-economic cost so in this context, much attention is directed to looking into science and technology and innovation to provide solutions quickly or what Gwendolyn aptly calls STI.

Science, Technology & Innovation Initiatives

Of course the most obvious of these initiatives is the roll out of the COVID-19 vaccine efforts.

She did not go into the technology and technical details of the roll out but emphasized that the focus is on the speed of the promotion and the reach of the vaccination program.

According to Gwendolyn both public and private sectors provided solutions to the pandemic crisis. The use of Zoom in fact was prevalent to manage meetings and conferences.

The rapid development of the vaccine, and the deployment of digital technologies like Zoom helped in managing the impact of the pandemic. The pandemic has forced better access to scientific publications, spurring international collaboration, and giving birth to different forms of private and public partnerships.

Although most of the technologies used today had been around for some time, it was only in this pandemic that most of the digital technologies were rapidly deployed and adapted.

STI is already here but there are challenges. The impact of the pandemic is endangering key productive and innovation capabilities especially in hard hit sectors.

Important portions of the STI systems have been acutely affected, including the large share of small & medium-size enterprises. Early-stage start-ups, young researchers still needing to make their mark and even women, who on average, devote more time to care of duties and at the expense of their STI activities during the lockdown.

Gwendolyn articulated that there are still shaping research and innovation systems, and the contributions these systems make to solving long-term grand challenges.

Digital Transformation in the IFRC

So much of the IFRC work is heavily dependent on knowledge management. The IFRC has almost transformed 100% of its processes and procedures today digitally. IFRC was not really like that years ago.

IFRC was still doing a lot of its transactions on papers. They were doing their transactions manually but with the COVID-19 situation, they were forced to change their processes and procedures to digital.

The virtual working modality was also adapted overnight because they could not get their team on board. They cannot get people to go on vacation because we actually work when there is a disaster or crisis. So IFRC had to provide a solution, how can people work?

Immediately, they did virtual work and issued internet access to most of their teams and staff members. They allowed them to work from home. That has proven to work in most of our operational processes.

The pandemic proved that much of the operational and business continuity within the Red Cross was unaffected.

Work processes showed in the fifteen months of the pandemic situation, that digital and virtual working can be effective, efficient and productive. It is, only if they are serious in using it.

This also proved that investing in existing knowledge workers and increasing their capacity to enable digital work can be a long sustainable and durable solution to effectively manage operational cost.

It can also be sustainable if it can be channeled into more innovative digital tools in humanitarian frontlines.

This time, IFRC didn’t send most of their teams on site. They stopped sending international teams to the ground. In the past, when there were disasters, IFRC almost always mobilized international teams which cost them a lot of money.

They thought that was the way to work. But this time because of the movement restrictions, they have no choice but to send the national team to the different provinces and localities, just to provide the support and care.

IFRC realized that it really worked well and best, because it reduces the cost, the people know the language and know the context and they’re respected in the community.

According to Gwendolyn, they put in a lot of digitalization in their work. Most of their volunteers even when they’re working remotely, sometimes need to be on the ground. Of course, they are issued personal protective equipment or PPEs. IFRC makes sure that they have a duty of care to support the people.

IFRC is also supporting them with the right tools and applications mostly digital when they go to the ground, especially at getting data and also sharing data.

With frontline workers in disaster & conflict situations, they cannot always be fully digitalized. Sometimes they use drone technology and other mapping applications to help them equip themselves in their work.

Gwendolyn explains that the COVID-19 pandemic digital tools used in response initiatives can be managed fully through technology in a fully functional humanitarian setting.

Before digitalization they thought it can only be done in the corporate sector but now they realized that even in the Red Cross they are now able to do that.

Shifting Business Models in the Face of a Global Pandemic

The COVID-19 situation and related economic turmoil, has put a strain on businesses and they have seen that around the world. It poses an existential threat to many enterprises.

Gwendolyn was very happy that the AFEEC 2021 talks about how businesses are able to rise above the challenges, immediately adapt to the new way of working and immediately adapt to the needs of their customers, and be able to survive and to really do well in the business despite the crisis.

Of course, there are many opportunities.

COVID-19 are driving shifts and emergence of new business models at least for those who are ready.

For those who are not ready, this won’t work. The first one gives a stance on direction while being ready for the unexpected.

For instance, when Gwendolyn was in China, she was in the epicenter of the COVID-19 outbreak at the time. At the time, they were trying to get supplies for masks and other PPEs.

Their logistics office questioned them because some of the suppliers are actually from an automotive company or some semiconductor or equipment generators, or something like that. The question was why they were getting masks from these companies.

This actually means that these companies are able to shift to new products. According to Gwendolyn this shift indicates these businesses were ready at that time, even at an unexpected crisis.

They were able to produce masks. So this is also what we call smart luck. They were able to reframe---reframing is about looking at the situation and their capabilities differently.

Gwendolyn cited an example.

At first, they were using just surgical masks for the PPEs. Now, they are seeing many different styles and varieties of masks, gowns and whatever. So this is also reframing the business as an opportunity. In the Red Cross, we also had that.

Businesses must take advantage of the unprecedented, and shape operations and future corporate culture.

Gwendolyn said that often in this fast changing world challenges drive unexpected solutions which we can make sense of.

For example, IKEA produces wind farms, instead of home furniture, so they went into the wind farm business. Then, Mahindra operated effectively on waste-to-energy projects. So the quick shift of business was also seen in this COVID-19 situation but also talks more about corporate culture in their operation.

Gwendolyn also mentioned what she calls “cultivating serendipity-spotting”. When you are in a situation like this pandemic, sometimes you have to be alert and to see what is crucial, to notice the unexpected events and to turn them into innovation.

Some companies have integrated practices such as asking their members in weekly meetings if they have come across something surprising. Then they use it as a way to do new businesses. This also provides a sense of belonging because companies are often the most important place for people to socialize.

In a physically distanced COVID-19 world, this needs to be emulated virtually, and this can include random lunches with the team. Although they can’t do it physically, they do it sometimes online.

The Operational Challenges of the Red Cross

The Red Cross is operating in 35 countries out of 38. They have supported 45 million people with food and have given 4.2 million worth of social support. About 40 million people received hygiene care from the Red Cross and about 75,000 people were given support for screening tests.

It has also given cash support to 863,000 beneficiaries so they can use it as a start-up or to buy what they want. All of that, they would not be able to do this without partnering with some corporate sectors who provided us with some of the platform, and also the committee people who supported us in delivering these much needed services to the ground.

The Red Cross also has its own operational challenges.

At the height of the global pandemic, the people and activities managed by the Red Cross were affected by movement restrictions, lack of vaccine and PPEs.

They are yet to achieve a lot in vaccines. Like what Gwendolyn has mentioned, the vaccine is an innovation. It’s a breakthrough. It can help protect us and it can help end the pandemic. However, as of Gwendolyn’s talk in the AFEEC 2021, only 10% of 5-6 countries have been vaccinated.

In Asia Pacific, only Singapore, Bhutan and Maldives have reached at least 50% of their population, because maybe the size of the population is very small. However, in other countries, we can see 0.5% to 4.5% only in terms of the number of people vaccinated. It will take 3 to 5 years to finish inoculation in the country.

Then there are also people being further marginalized because of the lack of support and care that they can access. The needs are varied and vast.

There are also compounding disasters. While other countries might be facing the challenges of COVID-19 another disaster can be developing elsewhere.

Like Afghanistan, drought, monsoon season is coming. In other countries, we see a combination of challenges while having the pandemic. It can also mean having natural disasters happening in the midst of the pandemic.

Another challenge is inadequate capital to reinvest and restart the businesses in countries where the economy has mostly shut down.

The New Normal and the Next Wave

According to Gwendolyn, the new normal, which has now entered more than 18 months into this pandemic, unfortunately, is nowhere close to the finish line.

Much still hangs in the balance of controlling the spread of COVID-19 and ensuring the economy of the company does not suffer more. It’s very difficult to guess when the pandemic will end. We cannot say when. We cannot say until when is this because everything is happening by surprise.

We are still guessing when the next wave will start or will it ever.

So how we are preparing is very important and also, how we can help people go back to their normal life. Learning from previous pandemic, it usually takes two years before everything goes back to normal. It is also very important to understand how the new normal looks like.

Another is accelerated vaccination. So I think the corporate sector could really accelerate the vaccination program by supporting the vaccination program of the government.

In the Philippines, according to Gwendolyn, Some of the corporate sector started purchasing vaccines on their own. They did not wait for the government to buy vaccines anymore.

However, they also need to inject the vaccine into their employees, so they can actually tap upon organizations like the Red Cross and other organizations who can do the vaccination for them.

The Red Cross can, as quickly as possible, do the vaccination program. Some companies actually offer their spaces to be the vaccination centers, if they have extra space.

There’s still a lot of things that need to be done. We are not there yet.

We have to prepare for the Third Wave, or the new waves to come. How to prepare for it: The IFRC has to ensure that it accelerates vaccination. Continue to remain vigilant.

We have to be anticipating who can be the next target of the Third Wave. We can actually prepare. What could be the needs? We have to prepare ahead of time before the third wave comes.

Gwendolyn ended her talk with words of caution: Expect the worsening of socio-economic inequality because of the continuing impact of COVID-19.