Morning Briefing
Summaries of health policy coverage from major news organizations
Mortality Rate Prompts Sweden's Health Chief To Question Response; China Denies It Withheld Early Information
Reuters: Sweden Should Have Done More To Combat Coronavirus, Health Chief Says
Sweden should have done more to combat the coronavirus, the epidemiologist behind a national strategy that avoided the strict lockdowns seen in many other countries said on Wednesday. Anders Tegnell’s comments followed mounting criticism of the government’s handling of the crisis and a policy that has relied largely on voluntary action, social distancing and common-sense hygiene advice but has failed to prevent the virus spreading. (Ahlander and Johnson, 6/3)
Reuters: China Rejects Report That It Delayed COVID-19 Information Sharing With WHO
China said on Wednesday a news report that said it delayed sharing COVID-19 information with the World Health Organization (WHO) is totally untrue. Foreign ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian made the remarks during a daily briefing in response to a question about the report by the Associated Press, which said the WHO was frustrated by significant delays in information sharing by Beijing as the coronavirus outbreak took hold in China in January. (6/3)
Reuters: WHO Director For Americas Urges U.S. Help As Coronavirus Surges In Region
The World Health Organization’s regional director for the Americas urged the United States on Tuesday to keep helping countries in the region to fight the novel coronavirus even as the Trump administration leaves the U.N. agency. Coronavirus has infected almost 3 million people in the region that has massive inequalities, vulnerable indigenous groups in the Amazon and megacities where people live in close quarters and share public transportation, said the director, Carissa Etienne. (6/2)
Reuters: Black And Asian People In England More Likely To Die From COVID-19, Says Report
Black and Asian people in England are up to 50% more likely to die after becoming infected with COVID-19, an official study said on Tuesday, putting pressure on the government to outline plans to protect the most at-risk communities. (Smout, 6/2)
Reuters: 'A Great Sadness': Bolivia Strains Under COVID-19 As Cases Top 10,000
Bolivian authorities are doing door-to-door checks in regions with severe coronavirus outbreaks as it looks to stem the spread of COVID-19 infections which have risen above 10,000, even as the country eases quarantine measures that have hammered growth. (Ramos, 6/2)
The New York Times: Coronavirus Infects Famed Research Lab Working On At-Home Test
For months, researchers at the Pasteur Institute in Dakar, a prestigious biomedical research center in Senegal, have been working to produce a low-cost, rapid, at-home test for the coronavirus — the kind that countries across Africa and elsewhere have been most eager to have. Now the coronavirus has infected a cluster of staff members at the institute, one of whom has died, according to its director, Dr. Amadou Sall. He did not say how many workers had tested positive, but local media reports said it was five. (Maclean, 6/2)
The New York Times: Amsterdam’s Red Light Zone Stays Shut As Rest Of City Edges Open
The red lights still shone above the windows in De Wallen, Amsterdam’s main red-light district, but the windows themselves were empty. The streets lining the canals, normally crammed with tourists, were deserted. The brothels were closed, the prostitution museum shut until further notice. “No photos of sex workers,” read the signs above the brothel windows. “Fine: 95 euros.” (Kingsley, 6/3)
The New York Times: What Will It Take To Reopen The World To Travel?
After months of locked-down borders, countries that have stifled the coronavirus are trying to choreograph a risky dance: how to bring back visitors without importing another burst of uncontrolled contagion. Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania dropped restrictions for each other on May 15, while keeping out everyone else. Australia and New Zealand are planning to revive unrestricted flights within their own “travel bubble,” which Fiji, Israel and Costa Rica are clamoring to join. (Cave, 6/3)
The Washington Post: Mexico’s Hospitals Strain To Treat Coronavirus As Officials Say Cases Are Peaking
Every night at 7, Mexico tunes in to its coronavirus czar, a 51-year-old technocrat named Hugo López-Gatell. Confident and telegenic, he walks a fearful nation through the numbers: cases, deaths, hospital beds. In some ways, López-Gatell is Mexico’s Dr. Fauci. The Mexican epidemiologist has serious academic chops — a Ph.D. from Johns Hopkins — and years of experience battling pandemics. But he has staked out a radically different path from many of his peers. Mexico hasn’t imposed a curfew or used police to keep people home. It’s not attempting mass testing for the novel coronavirus. (Sheridan, 6/2)
The Wall Street Journal: Low-Income Nations Likely To Remain Deeply Damaged Five Years After Pandemic, World Bank Says
The world’s low-income and emerging market economies will likely remain deeply damaged even five years after the coronavirus pandemic and associated lockdowns began, according to a new study from the World Bank. The virus has already plunged the world into a severe recession, the World Bank said, and its research casts doubt on scenarios in which emerging markets bounce back quickly after the health crisis has eased. (Zumbrun, 6/2)
CIDRAP: Latin America Carries Rising Burden Of Global COVID-19 Cases
The head of the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) said that about 250,000 of the world's 732,000 COVID-19 cases reported last week were from Latin America, which is concerning and underscores a need to double down on efforts to battle the virus, including ramping up testing. The global total today rose to 6,333,760 cases, and 378,240 people have died from their infections, according to the Johns Hopkins online dashboard. (Schnirring, 6/2)
