Editorials, Opinion Pieces Examine Various Aspects Of COVID-19 Pandemic

Wall Street Journal: The Real Cure for Coronavirus
Editorial Board

“Governments are frantically trying to contain and combat the coronavirus, and those efforts are important, but the world’s best hope is private innovation. Cutting-edge diagnostic tests and treatments are advancing, and government should encourage the trend. President Trump recently ordered the Food and Drug Administration to ‘slash red tape like nobody’s ever done before’ to make medicines approved for other illnesses available for coronavirus patients. The FDA is famously cautious, and safety is important. But drug regulators need to be more nimble during a pandemic with millions of lives at risk. … The nearer-term hope is that expanded testing can slow the spread while experimental treatments relieve the symptoms and reduce the demand for scarce ventilators and ICU beds. If even some therapies now in testing help, governments may feel better about easing economic and travel restrictions. Global commerce has allowed the coronavirus to spread faster and further. But healthy competition among drugmakers and scientists around the world is also accelerating innovation to stop the virus” (3/29).

Wall Street Journal: A Week of Coronavirus Pain and Progress
Editorial Board

“As the number of Americans infected with the coronavirus surges, and hospitals are besieged, it can appear that America is losing the pandemic war. But in important ways the U.S. is better off at the end of March than it was a week ago, and it’s worth tracking the progress as well as the pain. The most important good news this week is the ebbing panic in financial markets. … There has also been progress against the direct assault of the virus … More broadly, the scope of what we still need to learn to develop a sustainable anti-virus strategy is coming into focus. … The good news here is that the public seems to be ignoring the trivial politics and focusing on what matters. … Most Americans are looking past it for real news about help on the economy, the availability of medical equipment, and the potential of anti-viral therapies. Damage from the virus will continue for months, but America is now mobilizing against it. Don’t bet against success” (3/27).

Washington Post: The coronavirus gives Russia and China another opportunity to spread their disinformation
Editorial Board

“As fast as the coronavirus has raced around the globe, it has been outpaced by a blinding avalanche of social media sorcery and propaganda related to the pathogen, much of it apparently originating in Russia. As always when it comes to its relations with the West, Moscow’s main currency is disinformation, and it spends lavishly. A European Union document, obtained by Reuters, finds that Russia’s state-controlled media has used the public health crisis to undertake an ambitious disinformation campaign in the West whose goal is to sow the seeds of panic and distrust. … Unfortunately, Russia’s meddling in 2016 proved that America is fertile ground for such information wars. To Moscow and other adversaries of the United States, it makes little apparent difference whether an election or a pandemic provides the leverage it seeks to subvert trust, institutions, and cohesion. The point is to make a muddle of the truth, to cast suspicion on everything, and to weaken the American body politic with doubt and despair. As a means of attack, that can be as debilitating as a virus” (3/29).

Washington Post: Trump needs to put commanders in charge of this war
Editorial Board

“…The most important thing [President Trump] can do now is to manage the pandemic as if in wartime: put it in the hands of commanders who know how to fight it. The president needs to draw from the country’s rich and talented pool of seasoned experts. He should immediately put someone in charge of the ongoing first wave, which may yet last for many weeks, and he should name a second person to begin planning for the transition period that follows, an immensely complex task. … The nation and the world need leadership. The enormity of the pandemic emergency is too great to be resolved separately by 50 governors and 3,142 counties. … Please, put commanders in charge of this war — a war we did not ask for but cannot afford to lose” (3/28).

The Atlantic: Trump’s Break With China Has Deadly Consequences
Peter Beinart, professor of journalism at the City University of New York (3/28).

The Atlantic: The Thing That Determines a Country’s Resistance to the Coronavirus
Francis Fukuyama, writer at the Atlantic (3/30).

The Atlantic: America Should Build an International Coalition Now
Brett McGurk, former special presidential envoy for the Global Coalition to Defeat ISIS (3/29).

BBC: Coronavirus: What the world can learn from Ebola fight
Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, Africa’s first elected female president and Nobel Peace laureate (3/30).

Bloomberg: Calling It the ‘Chinese Virus’ Only Boosts China
Pankaj Mishra, Bloomberg opinion columnist (3/28).

Euractiv: After the pandemic: COVID-19 exposes threat of biological warfare
Ellen Laipson, former vice-chair of the National Intelligence Council and director of the international security program at the Schar School of Policy and Government at George Mason University (3/30).

Foreign Affairs: Plagues Tell Us Who We Are
Thomas J. Bollyky, director of the Global Health Program at the Council on Foreign Relations and author (3/28).

Foreign Affairs: Ebola Should Have Immunized the United States to the Coronavirus
Christopher Kirchhoff, member of the White House Ebola Task Force in 2015 and lead for the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff on Operation United Assistance (3/28).

Foreign Policy: Amid Coronavirus Spread, Host Countries Ignore Refugee Health at Their Own Peril
Sanjana Ravi, senior research associate at the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security (3/27).

The Guardian: This is not the time for blame: we need to get ahead of the pandemic
David Nabarro, co-director of the Imperial College Institute of Global Health Innovation at the Imperial College London, strategic director of 4SD, and one of six special envoys on COVID-19 to the WHO director general (3/29).

The Hill: COVID-19: Now is the time to create the future we want
Mark Dybul and Deus Bazira, co-directors at the Center for Global Health Practice and Impact at Georgetown University Medical Center (3/26).

The Hill: Anticipating the next waves of COVID-19
R. David Harden, managing director of the Georgetown Strategy Group, and Louise C. Ivers, executive director of Massachusetts General Hospital Center for Global Health, associate professor of global health and social medicine at Harvard Medical School, and practicing infectious diseases physician (3/29).

The Hill: Africa knows how to fight viruses — they simply need the resources, fast
K. Riva Levinson, president and CEO of KRL International LLC and author (3/29).

Newsweek: Here Is What Working The Ebola Frontline Taught Us About Fighting The Coronavirus Pandemic | Opinion
Mesfin Teklu Tessema, head of the health unit at the International Rescue Committee and IRC’s senior leader in health (3/27).

New York Times: The Politics of a Pandemic
Charles M. Blow, opinion columnist at the New York Times (3/29).

New York Times: We Can Safely Restart the Economy in June. Here’s How
Ezekiel J. Emanuel, vice provost of global initiatives and professor at the University of Pennsylvania (3/28).

New York Times: Covid-19 Brings Out All the Usual Zombies
Paul Krugman, opinion columnist at the New York Times and distinguished professor at the City University of New York Graduate Center (3/28).

New York Times: Germany Has Relatively Few Deaths From Coronavirus. Why?
Anna Sauerbrey, contributing opinion writer at the New York Times and editor and writer at Der Tagesspiegel (3/28).

Project Syndicate: Four Priorities for a Global Pandemic Strategy
Josep Borrell, E.U. high representative for foreign affairs and security policy and vice president of the European Commission (3/30).

Project Syndicate: A Gender Lens for COVID-19
Susan Papp, managing director of policy and advocacy at Women Deliver, and Marcy Hersh, senior manager for humanitarian advocacy at Women Deliver (3/27).

Scientific American: Why Some People Resist Advice on How to Behave in the Pandemic
Troy Campbell, assistant professor of marketing at the University of Oregon (3/28).

Scientific American: COVID-19 Policy Must Take All Impacts into Account
Charles F. Manski, Board of Trustees professor in economics and fellow of the Institute for Policy Research at Northwestern University and member of the National Academy of Science (3/28).

STAT: Community health workers will be the main defense in rural Uganda against coronavirus
James O’Donovan, physician and researcher in global health at the University of Oxford and Omni Med (3/28).

USA TODAY: Coronavirus signals we must shift from terrorism to new bipartisan intelligence priorities
John D. Negroponte, James R. Schlesinger distinguished professor at the Miller Center for Public Affairs at the University of Virginia, and Edward M. Wittenstein, deputy director for Leadership Programs at Yale University’s Jackson Institute for Global Affairs and executive director of Yale’s Johnson Center for the Study of American Diplomacy (3/30).

Wall Street Journal: An Update on the Coronavirus Treatment
Jeff Colyer, practicing physician (3/29).

Washington Post: Pompeo’s pandemic performance ensures his place among the worst secretaries of state ever
Jackson Diehl, deputy editorial page editor and columnist at the Washington Post (3/29).

Washington Post: The most counterintuitive prediction about world politics and the coronavirus
Daniel W. Drezner, professor of international politics at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University (3/30).

Washington Post: Russia claims it has covid-19 under control. The facade is cracking
Garry Kasparov, chair of the Renew Democracy Initiative (3/29).

Washington Post: Bolsonaro is endangering Brazil. He must be impeached
Rosana Pinheiro-Machado, anthropologist at the University of Bath (3/29).

Washington Post: Republicans were more concerned about Ebola than they’ve been about coronavirus. Here’s why
Michael Tesler, TMC editor, associate professor of political science at the University of California at Irvine, and author (3/27).

Washington Post: No one will win the U.S. and China’s coronavirus contest
Ishaan Tharoor, writer at the Washington Post (3/30).

Xinhua: Commentary: Better global governance for public health needed to defeat pandemics
Shi Xiaomeng, Xinhua writer (3/30).

The KFF Daily Global Health Policy Report summarized news and information on global health policy from hundreds of sources, from May 2009 through December 2020. All summaries are archived and available via search.

KFF Headquarters: 185 Berry St., Suite 2000, San Francisco, CA 94107 | Phone 650-854-9400
Washington Offices and Barbara Jordan Conference Center: 1330 G Street, NW, Washington, DC 20005 | Phone 202-347-5270

www.kff.org | Email Alerts: kff.org/email | facebook.com/KFF | twitter.com/kff

The independent source for health policy research, polling, and news, KFF is a nonprofit organization based in San Francisco, California.