AFP: U.S. reversal prevents U.N. vote on pandemic truce
“The United States on Friday stunned other members of the U.N. Security Council by preventing a vote on a resolution for a ceasefire in various conflicts around the world to help troubled nations better fight the coronavirus pandemic, diplomats said. Washington’s reversal came a day after it agreed to the text, negotiators said under cover of anonymity. … The latest stalemate continues to leave the global peace and security body largely mute in the face of a once-in-a-century pandemic that has killed more than 270,000 people and raised further fears for the world’s most vulnerable. When asked for an explanation of the U.S. move, a State Department official told AFP that China had ‘repeatedly blocked compromises that would have allowed the Council to move forward’…” (5/9).

The Guardian: U.S. blocks vote on U.N.’s bid for global ceasefire over reference to WHO
“The U.S. has blocked a vote on a U.N. security council resolution calling for a global ceasefire during the Covid-19 pandemic, because the Trump administration objected to an indirect reference to the World Health Organization. … On Thursday night, it appeared that the compromise resolution had the support of the U.S. mission, but on Friday morning, that position switched and the U.S. ‘broke silence’ on the resolution, raising objection to the phrase ‘specialist health agencies,’ and blocking movement towards a vote. … A spokesperson for the U.S. mission at the U.N. suggested that if the resolution was to mention the work of the WHO, it would have to include critical language about how China and the WHO have handled the pandemic…” (Borger, 5/8).

Additional coverage of the U.S. move to block a Security Council vote on a resolution calling for a global ceasefire is available from DW, France 24, and Reuters (2).

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CNN: Allies despair as Trump abandons America’s leadership role at a time of global crisis
“The United States has scaled back its role on the world stage, taken actions that are undermining efforts to battle the coronavirus pandemic, and left the international community without a traditional global leader, according to experts, diplomats, and analysts. The U.S. — usually at the head of the table helping to coordinate in global crises — has declined to take a seat at virtual international meetings convened by the World Health Organization and the European Union to coordinate work on potentially lifesaving vaccines. Former world leaders warn that the Trump administration risks alienating allies by politicizing the deadly pandemic with its push to punish China and have other nations choose sides…” (Gaouette et al., 5/9).

New York Times: U.S. Leads the World’s Virus Fight? That’s News to the World
“…The State Department insists that the United States is at the fore of the global response to the virus, having so far committed $900 million in aid to some of the world’s neediest nations and international relief groups. ‘The State Department is very focused on saving lives,’ Secretary of State Mike Pompeo told reporters on Wednesday. Yet humanitarian workers have reported that only a fraction of the American aid has reached frontline responders overseas who are trying to stem the virus. And the funding alone has not quieted a growing unease among foreign allies that the United States will disengage from a united approach to treat and cure the pandemic…” (Jakes, 5/8).

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Health Policy Watch: World Health Assembly Resolution On COVID-19 Response: The Stark Choices Faced In A Polarized World Of Global Health
“As the 73rd World Health Assembly approaches, the European Union-sponsored draft resolution on the COVID-19 response is gathering steam and storm as it rolls closer to the planned opening of the Assembly on 18 May — with far less clarity about how it might actually hit the shores of the public debate…” (Vijay/Fletcher, 5/8).

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The Hill: Pompeo is Trump attack dog on China, COVID-19
“Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has positioned himself as the Trump administration’s most aggressive China critic, pushing the argument that Beijing holds responsibility for the coronavirus pandemic. He’s drawn the ire of Chinese officials and state-backed media, who label him a ‘liar’ and have called him ‘the common enemy of mankind’ for his attacks on the Communist Party, shifting their attacks directly on the secretary and away from earlier accusations speculating the U.S. military spread COVID-19…” (Kelly, 5/10).

The Telegraph: World Health Organization denies China influence allegations
“The World Health Organization on Sunday denied allegations that the president of China asked it to delay issuing a global warning about the Covid-19 virus amid an intensifying war of words between Beijing and Washington over the handling of the pandemic. Der Speigel on Friday cited sources in Germany’s Federal Intelligence Service (BND) saying that Xi Jinping, China’s head of state, had asked Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the director general of the World Health Organization, to withhold information about human-to-human transmission and delay sounding a global alarm…” (Oliphant, 5/10).

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Devex: U.S. Senate Democrats introduce $9B international COVID-19 funding bill
“A group of Senate Democrats introduced legislation Friday that would provide $9 billion for the global COVID-19 response and chart a more engaged course of action for the U.S. To date, most U.S. COVID-19 legislation has focused on the domestic response, and aid advocates had been pushing for more global funding. They will see this bill as a positive step, though it falls short of the $12 billion that advocates had proposed…” (Saldinger, 5/11).

Roll Call: Senate Democrats want $9 billion to fight COVID-19 overseas
“…The legislation, unveiled on Friday, is sponsored by Senate Foreign Relations ranking member Bob Menendez of New Jersey and is co-sponsored by eight of his Democratic colleagues on the committee. A major focus of the policy bill is to force the Trump administration to cooperate with multilateral organizations in searching for and sharing an eventual vaccine…” (Oswald, 5/8).

STAT: 14 questions for Fauci, Redfield, and the other Trump officials testifying on the U.S. coronavirus response
“…On Tuesday, Anthony Fauci, Robert Redfield, Stephen Hahn, and Brett Giroir are set to testify before the Senate’s main health committee. They’ll come face to face (or Zoom-to-face) with lawmakers who’ve been outspoken in their criticisms of the Trump administration’s coronavirus response, including Sens. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), and Patty Murray (D-Wash.). … One missing voice, however, will be the administration’s top health care official: Alex Azar, who the president replaced as task force chair in February, and who has been criticized recently for, among other issues, the controversial reassignment of Rick Bright, a high-ranking official helping to oversee vaccine development. If we had the opportunity, here’s what STAT reporters would ask the assembled guests on Tuesday…” (5/11).

Additional coverage of Anthony Fauci’s and Deborah Birx’s role in the COVID-19 response is available from POLITICO.

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Devex: U.S. DFC launches new health investment initiative
“The U.S. International Development Finance Corporation has launched a new initiative aimed at ramping up the agency’s focus on and funding for health investments, particularly those that foster global health resilience. The Health and Prosperity Initiative seeks to invest some $2 billion over the next three years and catalyze about $3 billion in private financing alongside its efforts. … Through the initiative, DFC will invest between $5 million and $500 million per project. It will use a range of its investment products in medical technologies, digital health, supply chain financing, manufacturing of health supplies, pharmacies, and pharmaceuticals, in addition to WASH and food security, said [Nafisa Jiwani, managing director for health initiatives at DFC], who is leading the effort…” (Saldinger, 5/11).

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Reuters: U.S. lawmakers urge support for Taiwan at WHO, amid COVID-19 fight -sources
“The leaders of U.S. congressional foreign affairs committees have written to more than 50 countries asking them to support Taiwan’s inclusion in the World Health Organization, citing the need for the broadest effort possible to fight the coronavirus pandemic, congressional sources said on Friday. Taiwan, which is not a member of the United Nations, has been excluded from the WHO, which is a U.N. agency, due to objections from China…” (Zengerle, 5/8).

Additional coverage of Taiwan and the WHO is available from CP/CBC.

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AP: AP Exclusive: Docs show top WH officials buried CDC report
“The decision to shelve detailed advice from the nation’s top disease control experts for reopening communities during the coronavirus pandemic came from the highest levels of the White House, according to internal government emails obtained by the Associated Press. The files also show that after the AP reported Thursday that the guidance document had been buried, the Trump administration ordered key parts of it to be fast-tracked for approval…” (Dearen/Miller, 5/9).

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The Hill: NIH launching study into coronavirus impacts on children
“The National Institutes of Health (NIH) is launching a major study into the coronavirus’s impacts on children in an effort to better understand how many children are infected and what impacts the virus has on their bodies…” (Wilson, 5/8).

POLITICO: Why the U.S. isn’t prepared to meet overwhelming demand for a coronavirus vaccine
“Meeting the overwhelming demand for a successful coronavirus vaccine will require a historic amount of coordination between scientists, drugmakers and the government. The nation’s supply chain isn’t anywhere close to ready for such an effort…” (Owermohle, 5/11).

STAT: Inside the NIH’s controversial decision to stop its big remdesivir study
“…The National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases has described to STAT in new detail how it made its fateful decision: to start giving remdesivir to patients who had been assigned to receive a placebo in the study, essentially limiting researchers’ ability to collect more data about whether the drug saves lives — something the study, called ACTT-1, suggests but does not prove. In the trial, 8% of the participants given remdesivir died, compared with 11.6% of the placebo group, a difference that was not statistically significant…” (Herper, 5/11).

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The Hill: Watchdog recommends ousted vaccine expert be temporarily reinstated: lawyers
“A federal watchdog said it has found ‘reasonable grounds’ to believe that the administration retaliated against a top public health official who says he was ousted after raising alarms about an unverified coronavirus treatment, his attorneys said Friday. Attorneys for Rick Bright, former head of the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority (BARDA), said the Office of Special Counsel (OSC) determined that the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) ‘violated the Whistleblower Protection Act by removing Dr. Bright from his position because he made protected disclosures in the best interest of the American public’…” (Weixel, 5/8).

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CBS News: Coronavirus expected to peak in world’s poorest countries in months, U.N. says
“A new report published Thursday by the United Nations’ Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said the ‘peak of coronavirus in the world’s poorest countries is not expected until some point over the next three to six months.’ The report is an update to the U.N.’s plan to deal with the pandemic, including the World Health Organization (WHO) and other humanitarian agencies…” (Falk, 5/8).

Washington Post: Coronavirus flares as states and countries ease social distancing guidelines
“Easing of social distancing guidelines — whether by government edict or individual decision — has led to new coronavirus flare-ups in the United States and abroad, even as pressure builds to loosen restrictions that have kept millions isolated and decimated economies. … As governments try to balance health and economic priorities, medical experts have said that new flare-ups are inevitable, but that widespread testing and contact tracing are key to preventing breakouts…” (DeYoung et al., 5/9).

Additional coverage of mitigation efforts to stem the spread of COVID-19 is available from Al Jazeera, Reuters, and The Telegraph.

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AFRICA

AP: African nations seek their own solutions in virus crisis (Petesch et al., 5/11).

Bloomberg: How Ebola Helped Africa Prepare for Coronavirus (Bax et al., 5/8).

Reuters: Second wave of COVID-19 cases sweeps Senegal’s holy city (Van Der Perre/Prentice, 5/11).

Reuters: Zambia seeks IMF funding to help soften impact of coronavirus (Mfula, 5/10).

Reuters: Madagascar coronavirus herbal mix draws demand from across Africa despite WHO misgivings (Rabary et al., 5/8).

Reuters: Ghana records over 500 coronavirus cases at industrial facility (Akorlie/Ross, 5/8).

Washington Post: As coronavirus spreads in Egypt, Sissi sees opportunity to tighten his grip (Raghavan, 5/10).

ASIA

Reuters: Plastic piles up in Thailand as pandemic efforts sideline pollution fight (Tanakasempipat/Stanway, 5/11).

Reuters: South Korea scrambles to contain nightclub coronavirus outbreak (Shin/Smith, 5/10).

EUROPE

New York Times: Europe’s Battle-Hardened Nations Show Resilience in Virus Fight (Stevis-Gridneff, 5/10).

NPR: Boris Johnson Outlines Plan To Ease Coronavirus Restrictions In U.K. (Hagemann, 5/10).

Reuters: Coronavirus cases surge in Russia, tally now third highest globally (Osborn, 5/11).

LATIN AMERICA & CARIBBEAN

NPR: Haitian Doctor Says This Is The Worst Epidemic He’s Faced (Beaubien, 5/8).

Reuters: Latin America’s indigenous shield elderly ‘cultural guardians’ from coronavirus (Garrison et al., 5/11).

Reuters: Biggest threat to Brazil coronavirus response? President Bolsonaro, says The Lancet (McGeever/Eisenhammer, 5/8).

U.N. News: ‘Humanitarian catastrophe’ looms in Haiti, threatening years of progress as COVID-19 takes hold, ECOSOC group says (5/8).

Washington Post: While other countries look to open up, Brazil can’t find a way to shut down (McCoy, 5/10).

MIDDLE EAST

AFP: Iran warns of virus resurgence after 51 new deaths (5/10).

Al Jazeera: WHO orders staff to cease work in Yemen’s Houthi-held areas (5/10).

AP: Saudi Arabia triples taxes, cuts $26B in costs amid pandemic (Batrawy, 5/11).

NORTH AMERICA

AP: Pandemic creates electoral uncertainty for Trump, Democrats (Peoples/Beaumont, 5/11).

The Atlantic: There’s One Big Reason the U.S. Economy Can’t Reopen (Meyer, 5/8).

Global Press Journal: Under-Resourced and Medically Understaffed, Puerto Rico Faces the Coronavirus (Rodriguez, 5/10).

New York Times: For Canada, Finding a Vaccine Will Only Be Part of the Equation (Austen, 5/8).

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Financial Times: Experts warn coronavirus will divert resources from killer diseases
“…[The dilemma of suspending vaccination campaigns amid the coronavirus pandemic] is faced across the developing world as the virus not only claims lives of health workers and others directly, but is also causing huge disruptions to the treatment and prevention of other killer diseases as the pandemic threatens to overwhelm fragile health systems. Aid groups fear this ‘resource steal’ will result in other illnesses, from HIV and TB to malaria and dengue fever, being neglected as finite resources are diverted to deal with Covid-19, costing lives today and storing up huge problems for the future…” (Jack/Munshi, 5/10).

Quartz: As if Covid-19 was not enough, other virus outbreaks are erupting around the world
“It’s a good time to be a virus, it seems. While everyone is likely well aware of the coronavirus pandemic, other viral diseases are also thriving, spreading locally and threatening already overwhelmed health care systems…” (Gelling, 5/10).

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Washington Post: Health workers and U.N. agency raise alarm that women and girls are losing access to crucial care as pandemic drags on
“…As coronavirus lockdowns continue to restrict movement around the world, [some health workers] working on family planning initiatives in developing countries have found female patients facing an uncomfortable paradox: The measures intended to keep them safe from the pandemic could have dangerous long-term impacts on their health. … A recent United Nations Population Fund study suggested that if the pandemic continues to disrupt care in more than 100 low- and middle-income countries over the next six months, 47 million women could lose access to contraceptives, leading to 7 million unplanned pregnancies. Although it’s too soon to determine what long-term consequences the pandemic could have on women’s health care access globally, experts pointing to the lessons of past outbreaks say the impact could be substantial, even as some countries begin to roll back their social-control measures…” (O’Grady, 5/8).

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STAT: What the world learned in eradicating smallpox: Unity mattered
“Forty years ago, the world celebrated the vanquishing of a formidable foe, smallpox, which had maimed and killed millions for centuries. On May 8, 1980, the World Health Organization declared that smallpox had been eradicated. That milestone, reached while the Cold War still raged, is an example of what the public health world can achieve when it works together — and is particularly resonant in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic. The campaign against smallpox took 21 years and required not just vaccinations but tracking and isolating new cases. ‘We learned a lot of lessons in smallpox, but one of them is the absolute necessity of coalitions,’ William ‘Bill’ Foege, one of the architects of the smallpox eradication program, told STAT…” (Branswell, 5/8).

U.N. News: Lessons from 40 year ‘victory over smallpox’ can be used to combat coronavirus today
“…The eradication [of smallpox] ‘stands as the greatest public health triumph in history,’ said World Health Organization (WHO) chief, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, at a virtual event, adding that ‘there are many lessons to learn’ from the scientific achievement ‘that can help fight COVID-19 and prepare for future pandemics’. Many of the basic public health tools that were used successfully to combat smallpox are the same ones that have been deployed to respond to Ebola and COVID-19, namely, disease surveillance, case finding, contact tracing, and mass communication campaigns to inform affected populations. ‘The smallpox eradication campaign had one crucial tool that we don’t have for COVID-19 yet’, said Mr. Ghebreyesus, ‘a vaccine’…” (5/8).

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AP: Clashes and unity calls at U.N. on World War II anniversary
“A U.N. Security Council meeting on the 75th anniversary of the end of World War II in Europe on Friday saw a clash between Russia and some Europeans, calls for unity to fight COVID-19, and warnings that the seeds of a new global conflict must be prevented from growing. Nearly 70 speakers, including more than 45 foreign ministers and the European Union’s top diplomat, took part in the informal video meeting organized by Estonia, which holds the council presidency this month, on lessons learned from the war for preventing future atrocities and the Security Council’s responsibility…” (Lederer, 5/9).

Washington Post: The shadow of World War II hangs over the coronavirus age
“The coronavirus pandemic has reminded us of how much World War II is hard-wired in the West’s political imagination. … For weeks, historians have reached back to the experience of World War II in search of useful lessons for this moment. In Europe, the trauma of the war now forever lurks beneath the continent’s appeals for unity and solidarity. In the United States, the great wartime mobilization of resources and manpower seemed to reflect what this unique nation was capable of achieving when set against a global, existential threat. Of course, there’s a limit to these metaphors’ potency…” (Tharoor, 5/11).

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Devex: Data around COVID-19 is a mess and here’s why that matters (Cornish et al., 5/11).

Devex: How aid implementers can avoid a post-coronavirus accounting fiasco (Igoe, 5/11).

New York Times: How Pandemics End (Kolata, 5/10).

Science: Lethal levels of heat and humidity are gripping global ‘hot spots’ sooner than expected (Cornwall, 5/8).

Science: ‘Finally, a virus got me.’ Scientist who fought Ebola and HIV reflects on facing death from COVID-19 (Draulans, 5/8).

STAT: The U.S. government contributed research to a Gilead remdesivir patent — but didn’t get credit (Silverman, 5/8).

U.N. News: 75 years on from the Nazi defeat, many still suffer impact of conflict: Guterres (5/8).

U.N. News: U.N. rights office concerned over migrant boat pushbacks in the Mediterranean (5/8).

U.N. News: U.N. chief appeals for global action against coronavirus-fueled hate speech (5/8).

U.N. News: U.N. virus hunters continue search for animal link to human COVID-19 infections (5/8).

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The Conversation: We may well be able to eliminate coronavirus, but we’ll probably never eradicate it. Here’s the difference
Adrian Esterman, professor of biostatistics at the University of South Australia (5/7).

The Conversation: Sexual and gender-based violence during COVID-19: lessons from Ebola
Monica Adhiambo Onyango, clinical associate professor for global health, and Alexandra Regan, global health specialist, both at Boston University (5/10).

Devex: Opinion: The future for humanitarian workers after COVID-19
Ali Al Mokdad, program management specialist in the international humanitarian and development sector (5/8).

Devex: Opinion: Helping women get into science early for future pandemic response
Aurore Nishimwe, lecturer at the University of Rwanda, Ph.D. candidate at the University of the Witwatersrand, and fellow with Tufts University’s One Health Fellowship (5/8).

Financial Times: Infecting volunteers with Covid-19 may speed up vaccine
Anjana Ahuja, science commentator (5/11).

Foreign Policy: It’s Time to Stop Pandering to Beijing Over Taiwan
Hilton Yip, journalist in Taiwan (5/8).

The Hill: World Health Organization: It’s worse than we think
Paul Roderick Gregory, professor of economics at the University of Houston, Texas, research fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University, and research fellow at the German Institute for Economic Research (5/8).

The Hill: Needed: A blueprint for a post-vaccine world
Krishna B. Kumar, director of international research at RAND Corporation and director of the Pardee Initiative for Global Human Progress at the Pardee RAND Graduate School; Mahshid Abir, senior physician policy researcher at RAND and emergency physician and director of the Acute Care Research Unit at the University of Michigan; and Christopher Nelson, senior political scientist at RAND (5/9).

The Hill: Americans should actually give a damn about the rest of the world
Wendy Sherman, professor and director of the Harvard Kennedy School Center for Public Leadership and senior counselor with Albright Stonebridge Group (5/8).

The Hill: Suspending support for WHO: A decision that will live in infamy?
J. Joseph Speidel, professor emeritus at the University of California, San Francisco, School of Medicine and non-resident senior fellow at the Population Institute (5/9).

The Lancet: Prevention and control of non-communicable diseases in the COVID-19 response
Hans Henri P. Kluge, WHO regional director for Europe (5/8).

The Telegraph: Help developing countries to manufacture their own medical equipment to solve supply shortages
Joshua Setipa, managing director of the United Nations Technology Bank for Least Developed Countries (5/9).

USA TODAY: The right response to the coronavirus is global engagement, just like after World War II
Liz Schrayer, president and CEO of the U.S. Global Leadership Coalition (5/10).

Washington Post: Joe Biden: How the White House coronavirus response presents us with a false choice
Joe Biden, presumptive Democratic nominee for president of the United States (5/11).

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CSIS: Coronavirus Crisis Update: Reviewing the World Health Organization
J. Stephen Morrison, senior vice president and director of the Global Health Policy Center at CSIS, and colleagues (5/4).

CSIS: Online Event: A Conversation with Winnie Byanyima, Executive Director of UNAIDS (5/6).

Human Rights Watch: Closing Pakistan’s Maternity Wards Puts Women at Risk
Saroop Ijaz, lawyer with Human Rights Watch in Pakistan (5/9).

Human Rights Watch: Governments Call for Protection of Sexual and Reproductive Rights
Amanda Klasing, acting co-director of the Women’s Rights Division at Human Rights Watch (5/8).

U.N.: Zimbabwean journalists get the story straight on Covid-19 (May 2020).

U.N.: Lebanese journalists face increased risks covering protests during pandemic (May 2020).

U.N.: U.N. supports routine — yet vital — health services while fighting COVID-19 (May 2020).

UNAIDS: Combatting COVID-19 discrimination in Jamaica (5/8).

UNFPA: COVID-19 strikes Yemen as humanitarian funding dries up (5/8).

UNICEF: ‘Call 1166’: The COVID-19 helpline center in Pakistan
Arifa S. Sharmin, polio communication specialist with UNICEF Pakistan (5/8).

World Bank: Supporting African women through the economic consequences of COVID-19
Amy Copley, analyst with the World Bank, and colleagues (5/8).

World Economic Forum: 3 ways COVID-19 could actually spark a better future for Africa
Cesar Augusto Mba Abogo, minister of finance, economy and planning with the Ministry of Finance, Economy and Planning of Equatorial Guinea (5/11).

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HHS: Secretary Azar Statement on Senate Confirmation of Brett Giroir to WHO Executive Board
“On Thursday, the Senate confirmed Admiral Brett Giroir, M.D., to serve as the United States representative on the World Health Organization (WHO) Executive Board, in addition to his duties as Assistant Secretary for Health. HHS Secretary Alex Azar issued the following statement: ‘…The COVID-19 pandemic has made clear the longstanding need to focus WHO on information sharing and coordination during disease outbreaks, and Admiral Giroir will play a key role as the United States works with nations around the world to reform WHO with that goal in mind'” (5/8).

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KFF: COVID-19 Coronavirus Tracker — Updated as of May 11, 2020 (5/11).

Additional KFF COVID-19 resources on the global situation, as well as those focused on the response and impact within the U.S., are available here. KFF’s new blog series “Coronavirus Policy Watch” is available here.

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