• Autocrats See Opportunity in Disaster

    The world is distracted and the public need saving. It is a strongman’s dream. All the world’s attention is on COVID-19. The Economist writes that rulers everywhere have realized that now is the perfect time to do outrageous things, safe in the knowledge that the rest of the world will barely notice. Many are taking advantage of the pandemic to grab more power for themselves. No fewer than 84 have enacted emergency laws vesting extra powers in the executive. “In some cases, these powers are necessary to fight the pandemic and will be relinquished when it is over. But in many cases they are not, and won’t be. The places most at risk are those where democracy’s roots are shallow and institutional checks are weak.” The Economist continues: “Take Hungary, where the prime minister, Viktor Orban, has been eroding checks and balances for a decade. Under a new coronavirus law, he can now rule by decree. He has become, in effect, a dictator.”

  • COVID-19 Disruptions: Understanding Food Security Implications

    According to the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), the COVID-19 pandemic is impacting the world’s food systems and disrupting regional agricultural trade and value chains. The FAO has warned that food shortages are a real risk in the coming months. This global health crisis will test our food and trade systems in ways never experienced before.

  • Coronavirus and Its Social Effects Fueling Extremist Violence, Says Government Report

    The coronavirus pandemic and its social repercussions are fueling violence by both frustrated individuals and domestic terrorists, according to a new intelligence report by the Department of Homeland Security. Social distancing has meant the cancelation of mass gathering events that are historically appealing targets for both international and domestic terrorists, the report adds, but “the pandemic has created a new source of anger and frustration for some individuals. As a result, violent extremist plots will likely involve individuals seeking targets symbolic to their personal grievances.”

  • France, Europe Mull Controversial Coronavirus Tracing Apps

    France’s parliament votes next week on plans to use a controversial tracing app to help fight the coronavirus, as the country eyes easing its lockdown next month. Lisa Bryant writes in VOA News that French Digital Affairs Minister Cedric O says the downloadable app would notify smartphone users when they cross people with COVID-19, helping authorities track and reduce the spread of the pandemic. In a video on the ruling party’s Facebook page, O said the so-called “Stop COVID” app will fully respect people’s liberties, and will be completely voluntary and anonymous. It also will be temporary — lasting only as long as the pandemic, he added. The government wants to launch the app on May 11, the date it has set to begin easing a two-month lockdown in the country. It initially announced a parliamentary debate on the technology, but that’s been changed to a vote, after major pushback from lawmakers.

  • WHO Warns of Long Road Ahead with COVID-19

    The global COVID-19 total yesterday reached 2,623,231 cases from 185 countries, along with 182,359 deaths. At a media telebriefing yesterday, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreysus, PhD, the WHO’s director-general, said most of the epidemics in Western Europe have stabilized or are declining. However, there are worrying upward trends in Africa, Central and South America, and Eastern Europe, though numbers are still relatively low.

  • Study Calls into Question Use of Malaria Drug for COVID-19

    A retrospective study of patients with COVID-19 found no evidence that the anti-malaria drug hydroxychloroquine, either with or without the antibiotic azithromycin, reduced mortality or the need for mechanical ventilation. Researchers also found that hydroxychloroquine alone was associated with increased mortality. Early excitement about the combination was based on a small French study, and President Donald Trump soon began touting the combination as a potential “game changer,” but the findings from the study, which is the largest to date to report on outcomes from treating COVID-19 patients with the anti-malaria drug and uses a database that has been used for many different studies, suggest that the hydroxychloroquine/azithromycin combination may not be as promising for treating COVID-19 as some have hoped. 

  • NIST Tool Could Help Hospitals Repurpose Rooms for Disinfecting N95 Masks

    In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, hospitals across the United States are disinfecting N95 masks by placing them in repurposed rooms or shipping containers injected with a disinfectant known as vaporized hydrogen peroxide, or VHP. A new tool from the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) can help hospitals and medical professionals determine which rooms should be used to disinfect N95 masks. The tool estimates the amount of VHP masks would receive and suggests that larger rooms containing fewer objects, with less-reactive surfaces and slower ventilation, maintain VHP concentration the best.   

  • Brazil: Jair Bolsonaro’s Strategy of Chaos Hinders Coronavirus Response

    Brazil faces a tremendous uphill struggle in its response to COVID-19, the disease associated with the new coronavirus. Already eroded by years of budget cuts, the country’s public health system, the Sistema Único de Saúde (SUS), has been further undermined by the president, Jair Bolsonaro. Last week he participated in a demonstration during which opposition to lockdown measures was combined with calls for a military intervention to shut down Brazil’s congress and supreme court. Since coming to power in January 2019, Bolsonaro has led an attack on science and professional expertise – cutting research funds, substituting managers of research institutes with inexperienced political appointees, and publicly intimidating scientists. COVID-19 is a new phase of this ongoing war.

  • How South Korea Flattened the Coronavirus Curve with Technology

    As countries around the world consider how best to reopen their countries, it’s worth considering how South Korea has been able to “flatten the curve” and even hold parliamentary elections without resorting to lockdowns. Michael Ahn writes in The Conversation that after seeing an initial spike in COVID-19 infections in February, South Korea implemented several measures to bring the disease’s spread under control, a progression he has followed as a researcher on public policy. South Korea was able to lower the number of new infections from 851 on March 3 to 22 infections as of 17 April and the mortality rate from COVID-19 hovers around 2 percent. Several measures contribute to Korea’s success, but two measures were critical in the country’s ability to flatten the curve: extensive testing for the disease and a national system for promptly and effectively tracking people infected with COVID-19.

  • The Problem of Modeling

    The lessons starting to emerge from the coronavirus crisis are predominantly not epidemiological but highly general aspects of public policy, Paul Collier writes: the over-reliance on expert modelling and the mismanagement of public services. “The current epidemic is a classic application of what economists call ‘radical uncertainty’: in a world that has inevitably become too complex to be adequately captured in models, a world of both ‘known unknowns’ and ‘unknown unknowns,’ the most sensible response to the question ‘what should we do?’ is ‘I don’t know’,” he argues.

  • One Simple Number Can Solve Boris's Grimly Complex Lockdown Dilemma

    When Boris Johnson returns to work, he will have to grapple with a difficult decision. The British economy is on the brink, and must be revived, but the PM cannot risk the dreaded second coronavirus peak. Leaders of countries must make tough decisions in difficult situations, and Allister Heath writes that Boris’s decision ranks below the Cuban missile crisis matrix, of course, but above Tony Blair’s Iraq War calculations or Margaret Thatcher’s Falklands choices. “The Prime Minister faces a series of horrible moral and practical dilemmas best understood through elementary mathematics. The key concept is the R0 (pronounced R-nought): If the R0 is under 1, every victim infects fewer than one other person each, so the virus remains contained; if it is above 1, they each pass the virus to more than one other, contaminating swathes of the population quickly.”

  • How to Build and Deploy Testing Systems at Unprecedented Scale

    Without a vaccine or therapeutic drugs, neither of which is guaranteed, countries thus face a future of bouncing in and out of lockdown every few months, with infection rates ebbing and flowing in response. “The result will be mounting death tolls, depressed economies and confidence-sapping uncertainty. This can, however, be partly ameliorated by extensive testing for the virus. Testing enables the government to keep tabs on the disease, reveals which social-distancing measures work, and, if those testing positive remain at home, instils confidence in the public that it is safe to go out,” the Economist argues.

  • Trump Signs Executive Order Restricting Immigration

    U.S. President Donald Trump on Wednesday signed an executive order restricting immigration for a period of 60 days because of the coronavirus pandemic. The measure does not apply to any nonimmigrant visas, including those allowing temporary workers into the country for seasonal jobs in agriculture. It also exempts health professionals and wealthy investors seeking to move to the country. It does halt permanent resident visas (known as green cards) for parents of U.S. citizens and permanent residents, but not spouses. The order also excludes from suspension the cases of those who are in the country seeking to change their immigration status.

  • Extremists Publish 25,000 Email Addresses Allegedly Tied to COVID Fight

    Far-right extremists have published nearly 25,000 email addresses allegedly belonging to several major organizations fighting the coronavirus pandemic, including the World Health Organization, the U.S. National Institutes of Health and the World Bank. The hackers posted the email addresses across far-right messaging and chat sites, as well as Twitter, this week.

  • Extremists Involved in Nationwide Protests Against Coronavirus Restrictions

    Americans’ response to the coronavirus pandemic now includes a spate of nationwide rallies decrying stay-at-home orders and calling for “reopening” the economy. While many of the protests calling for the reopening of the economy and the lifting of state-issued quarantine mandates have been organized by more mainstream conservative organizations, a number have been sponsored in whole or part by identified extremists and a range of rally participants have carried signs or flags affiliated with various right-wing extremist ideologies.