In The News

Inept Multilateral System: Council on Foreign Relations

Stewart M. Patrick April 1, 2020
With COVID-19 sweeping the globe, “international cooperation has been missing in action and global solidarity has been AWOL,” reports the Financial Times. Instead of confronting the shared threat, countries take unilateral steps to protect themselves, exchanging blame for the pandemic. The Group of Seven, Group of Twenty and the United Nations have taken limited actions. The G7 finance ministers...

Multiple COVID-19 Vaccines in Development: CNBC

Noah Higgins-Dunn and Emma Newburger March 23, 2020
Researchers around the globe are in a race to find a vaccine and treatments for COVID-19 with more than 300,000 confirmed cases reported worldwide. The World Health Organization describes an accelerated process after China shared the genetic sequence: “at least 20 different coronavirus vaccines with some already in clinical trials in record time – just 60 days after sequencing the gene,” reports...

WHO Declares COVID-19 Pandemic: Voice of America

March 11, 2020
COVID-19 is now officially a global pandemic. The World Health Organization had resisted the declaration to avoid panics or notions that prevention is useless. “All countries can still change the course of this pandemic,” said WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus. He pointed out that “Some countries struggle with a lack of capacity. Some countries are struggling with a lack of...

WHO Waits to Call COVID-19 Pandemic: NewScientist

Debora MacKenzie February 27, 2020
The world prepares for a COVID-19 pandemic, described as inevitable by many health officials. A pandemic requires worldwide spread and deaths, according to the US Centers for Disease control. With confirmed cases reported in 47 nations, the World Health Organization has held off on declaring a pandemic. “Countries have pandemic plans that are launched when one is declared, but these plans may not...

What Happens If a Pandemic Hits? TechCrunch

John Evans February 25, 2020
The World Health Organization monitors the coronavirus as a group of epidemics and suggests it has the potential to become a global pandemic. Declaration of a pandemic would not mean closed borders, a shutdown of air travel or mass quarantines and drastic containment efforts could be counterproductive, argues Jon Evans for TechCrunch. “The focus will switch from containment to mitigation: slowing...

Global Spread of COVID-19: Spiegel

Veronika Hackenbroch and Fritz Schaap February 20, 2020
Thirty countries report confirmed coronavirus cases. Global public health experts suggest that case counts are low and express concern about the spread to less developed countries with dense populations and deep trade connections with China. For example, battling COVID-19 would be a challenge in Africa with shortages of health personnel, testing facilities, protective equipment, and...

Handling Coronavirus and No Zero Risk: USA Today

John Bacon February 18, 2020
The world has more than 70,000 confirmed cases of Covid-19. All but a few hundred are in China. The emergence and rapid spread of the new coronavirus, in the same family as the common cold, has alarmed public health officials. Authorities apply a range of controls: Quarantines separate those exposed until confirmation, isolation separates confirmed cases, lockdowns contain all in affected regions...