The WHO and COVID-19: José E. Alvarez looks at why the global health regime’s pandemic response has been an “abject failure” “If we did not know it before, COVID-19 makes it abundantly clear that no state can expect to go it alone when it comes to pandemics,” Herbert and Rose Rubin Professor of International Law José E. Alvarez writes in an essay published in the American Journal of International Law. José Alvarez In fact, he notes, the experience with COVID validates premises in the constitution of the World Health Organization (WHO): global health is dependent on “the fullest cooperation” of countries, and advances in health protection in any nation are “of value to all.” The WHO’s international health regulations also seem well suited to address a threat like coronavirus, Alvarez says, by requiring countries to establish core capacities for disease surveillance and response, and imposing a duty to report outbreaks.