USA TODAY: Joe Biden: Trump is worst possible leader to deal with coronavirus outbreak
Joe Biden, former vice president of the United States and current candidate for president

“…Pandemic diseases are a prime example of why international cooperation is a requirement of leadership in 2020. … [T]he United States must step forward to lead these efforts, because no other nation has the resources, the reach, or the relationships to marshal an effective international response. … As president, I will reassert U.S. leadership in global health security. My policies will always uphold science, not fiction or fear mongering. I will ask Congress to beef up the Public Health Emergency Fund and give me the power to use the Stafford Disaster Relief and Emergency Assistance Act to declare a disaster if an infectious disease threat merits it. I will also renew funding … for the nationwide network of hospitals that can isolate and treat people with infectious diseases, and fully fund the Global Health Security Agenda so the world is ready for the next outbreak. And I will rebuild public trust, make sure we have dedicated resources to help us respond to crises quickly, and better harness the capabilities of the private sector to protect the American people. Our national security requires nothing less” (1/27).

Foreign Policy: Welcome to the Belt and Road Pandemic
Laurie Garrett, former senior fellow for global health at the Council on Foreign Relations

“…China’s [President Xi Jinping’s] political agenda may turn out to be a root cause of the [coronavirus] epidemic. By making the Belt and Road Initiative endeavor — a multitrillion-dollar program to expand Chinese trade and infrastructure around the world — the centerpiece of his foreign and economic policy, Xi has made it possible for a local disease to become a global menace. … China is … a nation deeply connected to the rest of the world … If the Belt and Road Initiative and other Chinese connections with the rest of the world are in 2020 sufficiently robust that a prolonged Wuhan pneumonia epidemic might drive down the nation’s gross domestic product, cheapen world oil prices, and devastate the Shanghai stock market, that vast infrastructure is certainly adequate to provide a serious spread of the virus. … [I]t’s impossible to fathom a scenario in which the new coronavirus does not become a global crisis. … It’s hard to look at the new routes built with Chinese aid over Siberia and the Himalayas and as far as Africa without seeing potential routes for disease that could carry contagion to every corner of the world” (1/24).

Wall Street Journal: China’s Censorship Helps Spread the Virus
Paul Wolfowitz, former World Bank president and visiting scholar, and Max Frost, senior associate in foreign and defense policy, both at the American Enterprise Institute

“Xi Jinping has acknowledged that the ‘accelerating spread’ of a new coronavirus from the central Chinese city of Wuhan is a ‘grave situation.’ To stop the virus’s spread, the Chinese government has barred residents of Wuhan and nearby cities from traveling and blocked outbound flights, trains, buses, and ferries. But if this develops into a catastrophe, the cult of personality around Mr. Xi and the Communist regime’s efforts to control information will deserve much of the blame. … China has no independent media and strict censorship even in peacetime. The virus has spread to Xinjiang, where the government holds more than a million Uighurs in densely populated ‘re-education centers.’ Beijing has blocked Taiwan — which has three confirmed cases of the virus — from participating in a World Health Organization discussion of the outbreak. Meanwhile, Chinese police are interrogating people for ‘spreading rumors’ on social media about the virus. … Wuhan’s bestselling newspaper didn’t put the outbreak on its front page until nearly three weeks after the first cases. … [S]ecrecy can kill. Chinese communism now threatens the world with a massive medical disaster” (1/26).

CNN: The World Health Organization should sound the alarm on Wuhan coronavirus
Michael Bociurkiw, global affairs analyst and former spokesman for both the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe and UNICEF (1/25).

The Hill: An evolving novel coronavirus epidemic
Amesh Adalja, infectious disease physician and senior scholar at the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security (1/25).

New York Times: Will the Largest Quarantine in History Just Make Things Worse?
Howard Markel, George E. Wantz distinguished professor of the history of medicine at the University of Michigan (1/27).

Washington Post: The WHO held off on declaring the Wuhan coronavirus a global health emergency. Here’s why.
Mara Pillinger, associate at the O’Neill Institute for National and Global Health Law at Georgetown University (1/26).