Bloomberg: U.N. Chief Urges Divided Security Council to Act on Coronavirus
“United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres urged members of the Security Council to come together to fight the global coronavirus outbreak, marking the first time the divided 15-nation body discussed the pandemic. ‘The engagement of the Security Council will be critical to mitigate the peace and security implications of the Covid-19 pandemic,’ Guterres told council members in a closed-door video conference on Thursday…” (Wainer, 4/9).

Foreign Policy: Can the United Nations Survive the Coronavirus?
“…Since the World Health Organization declared a pandemic on March 11, a host of international dignitaries, including U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres and leaders from China and Estonia to Tunisia, France, and Russia, have vied with one another to fill the geopolitical vacuum, putting forward a succession of plans to address the health crisis. But each effort has met stiff resistance or indifference, raising questions about the ability of the U.N. to function effectively with a declining American superpower unwilling, and seemingly unable, to guide the world through the health calamity, and the capacity of a rising China to forge a concerted international response to a pandemic that started on its soil…” (Lynch, 4/8).

Additional coverage of Guterres’s comments at the Security Council briefing is available from AP and U.N. News.