In The News

World Health Assembly Excludes Taiwan: Taipei Times

Lee I-chia May 19, 2020
Taiwan demonstrated skill in tackling and controlling the spread of Covid-19 among its population of 23 million. Even so, the World Health Assembly, hesitant to antagonize China, excluded Taiwan from its virtual meeting. Taiwan sent a letter of protest to the World Health Organization Secretariat. “While the focus of this year’s WHA should be on the COVID-19 pandemic, Taiwan’s performance in...

Covid-19 “Overreaction” a Success in Vietnam: BBC

Anna Jones May 15, 2020
After taking aggressive measures against Covid-19 in early January, Vietnam reported no new cases in more than a month. “Vietnam saw a small window to act early on and used it fully,” reports Anna Jones for BBC News. “But though cost-effective, its intrusive and labour intensive approach has its drawbacks and experts say it may be too late for most other countries to learn from its success.” The...

Unprecedented Isolation: El País

Moisés Naím May 6, 2020
Covid-19 confounds humans with its exponential growth and cases doubling in increasingly shorter periods of time, resulting in steep curve. The United States responded swiftly on the economic front, approving more than $2 trillion in stimulus spending. Still, the largest economic stimulus package in history won’t prevent economic recession, job losses, bankruptcies and evictions. All countries...

Tragedy Knocking at Latin America’s Door: Este Pais

Ernesto Zedillo Ponce de León May 4, 2020
The health and economic shocks of Covid-19 could surpass any challenge of the previous century for Latin America and the Caribbean. Mixed responses – some swift and efficient with a focus on saving lives; others incompetent and political – could devastate the region. With global economic interdependence or not, governments must contend with errors made by other countries. Too many leaders around...

Invisible Danger From Afar: Times of India

Nayan Chanda May 2, 2020
Travels and globalization have long been linked to new diseases that contributed to the death of millions: In the 1330s, the bubonic plague traveled along trade routes from China to Crimea and Europe. After 1492, European explorers introduced diseases like smallpox and diphtheria to the Americas, ravaging native populations. Such diseases disrupted trade for a spell, but innovations and...

Dire Diplomacy in Global “Race for Vaccine”: Wired

Brendan Borrell May 1, 2020
The US Naval Medical Research Center once had more than 12 labs around the world, developing foreign partnerships to identify emerging disease. A research team identified the avian flu in Indonesia in 2005, though the partnerships had been deteriorating in 1998 over concerns about vaccine sales, suspended aid and spying worries. The 9/11 attacks and the 2008 financial crisis then reduced budgets...

Weapons Don’t Fight Pandemics: Deutsche Welle

Miodrag Soric April 27, 2020
Security comes in many forms and some nations invest in broader preparation than others, as demonstrated by the Covid-19 pandemic. Writing for Deutsche Welle, Miodrag Soric argues that countries that focused on arms purchases rather than disaster preparedness struggle with the pandemic. “Tanks, fighter planes and aircraft carriers – where many crew members have fallen ill with the coronavirus –...