AP: A pandemic atlas: How COVID-19 took over the world in 2020 “Almost no place has been spared — and no one. The virus that first emerged a year ago in Wuhan, China, swept across the world in 2020, leaving havoc in its wake. More than any event in memory,…

World Economic Forum: Data can prevent the next global health emergency. Here’s how Hemant Ahlawat, senior partner at McKinsey & Company, and colleagues discuss the role of data and advanced analytics to help mitigate the impacts of future health emergencies, highlighting a recently published report by the Trinity Challenge on…

U.N. News: COVID-19 shows ‘urgent need’ for solidarity, U.N. chief tells Nobel forum “The COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted the need for global solidarity and greater international cooperation, and must be turned into an opportunity for fundamental change, U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres said in a keynote address to the Nobel Peace…

Bloomberg: How Pandemic Bonds Became the World’s Most Controversial Investment “…As Covid-19’s devastating human and economic tolls continue to rise, the controversy over pandemic bonds is part of a wider debate over how policy makers should respond to viral outbreaks and who should foot the bill. The harshest critics of…

U.N. News: We cannot allow corruption to infest COVID-19 recovery, U.N. chief says “Corruption has thrived under the coronavirus pandemic and anyone involved in graft must be prevented from exploiting the rollout of new vaccines, the U.N. Secretary-General has said. In a message on International Anti-Corruption Day, on Wednesday, Secretary-General…

AP: Siberians fight the pandemic by giving weary doctors a lift (Alexeyeva, 12/8). AP: Merkel backs tougher virus curbs as German deaths hit record (Moulson et al., 12/9). Borgen Magazine: COVID-19 Showing the Importance of Agricultural Market Resiliency (Friborg, 12/6). Devex: The man behind Africa’s COVID-19 response (Jerving, 12/9). Devex:…

The Telegraph: Review into DRC Ebola outbreak shared with senior officials only after outbreak ended “A review into the management of a long-running outbreak of Ebola in the Democratic Republic of Congo was not seen by some senior members of the organizations involved in the response until several months after…

Foreign Affairs: Does the World Need a New Global Health Organization? “We at Foreign Affairs have recently published a number of pieces on global health organizations and the COVID-19 pandemic. To complement these articles, we decided to ask a broad pool of experts for their take. As with previous surveys,…

Reuters: A year into COVID-19, U.N. declares a day of ‘epidemic preparedness’ “A year into a global battle against the coronavirus, the United Nations General Assembly on Monday declared Dec. 27 will be the ‘International Day of Epidemic Preparedness’ in a bid to ensure lessons are learned for any future…

ABC News: Experts are homing in on an influenza vaccine that could last a lifetime (Afrahimi, 12/7). Al Jazeera: Bangladesh moves Rohingya to remote island (Ghani, 12/7). AP: Yemen ‘on edge of precipice’ as UNICEF launches aid appeal (Federman, 12/7). AP: ‘Nobody knows’: Experts baffled by mystery illness in India…