Pandemic Highlights WHO’s Underlying Weakness: It Doesn’t Have Authority To Implement Global Response
The basic premise of the organization is that it serves as a global coordinator. But even as the organization attempts to fulfill that role in the current pandemic, its efforts have fallen largely flat and there's been a lack of a unified global response to the crisis. Meanwhile, China continues to grapple with the fallout from the outbreak, both politically and socially.
The New York Times:
The World Has A Plan To Fight Coronavirus. Most Countries Are Not Using It.
For weeks, the World Health Organization resisted declaring the coronavirus outbreak a pandemic, fearing that doing so would incite panic across the globe. But facing the cameras on Wednesday, the agency’s director general, Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, did just that, asking for global unity to “change the course of this pandemic.” It was a symbolic moment that underscored the standing of the W.H.O. as the world’s leading public health agency. But it also reflected the W.H.O.’s underlying weakness as an organization that by international treaty is supposed to lead and coordinate the global fight against coronavirus — yet that has, in many ways, been marginalized. (Gebrekidan, 3/12)
The Wall Street Journal:
China’s Coronavirus War Targets A New Threat: Foreigners
As China grows more optimistic about containing the spread of coronavirus within the country, it is confronting a potential threat to its recovery: the rest of the world. Epidemic-control efforts have turned to foreigners in China in recent days as confirmed cases within the country have slowed. Police officers and local government workers have made house calls specifically to check whether expatriates recently traveled to another country where they could have contracted the virus. (Yang and Woo, 3/12)
Reuters:
In 'People's War' On Coronavirus, Chinese Propaganda Faces Pushback
As Xi Jinping toured the coronavirus-stricken city of Wuhan this week, setting the tone for an official narrative that China will win a "People's War", numerous social media users went to extraordinary lengths to make an alternative voice heard. The effort to get around China's censors and publish the words of Wuhan doctor Ai Fen, the first to sound the alarm over the virus, was among the most elaborate in an outpouring of dissent against the government narrative as the outbreak exacts a devastating human and economic toll. (3/13)
The Associated Press:
In Role Reversal, Asia Seeks To Stop Virus From Coming In
From quarantining arriving travelers from overseas to nabbing those sneaking in with fevers, China and other parts of Asia are scrambling to prevent the new coronavirus from coming back to where it first broke out. Just as the spread of the disease is stabilizing in much of Asia, following a major outbreak in China and sizable ones in South Korea and Japan, it is popping up in new hot spots around the world. (3/13)
CNN:
US Military Brought Coronavirus To Wuhan, Chinese Diplomat Claims
A prominent Chinese official claims the United States military could have brought the novel coronavirus to China -- and it did not originate in the city of Wuhan, as thought. Posting to his more than 300,000 followers on Twitter, Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian republished a video of Robert Redfield, the director for the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, addressing a US Congressional committee on March 11. In the clip, Redfield said some influenza deaths in the US were later identified as cases of Covid-19, the disease caused by the novel coronavirus. (Westcott and Jiang, 3/13)
The Wall Street Journal:
Check Out How China Kept Its Supermarkets Stocked As Virus Raged
Two months into the coronavirus epidemic in China, tens of millions of people are still under quarantine and much of the economy remains in a deep freeze. Yet China has largely succeeded in keeping its stores filled with food and other essentials—even in hard-hit places like the city of Wuhan—a crucial factor in maintaining public order throughout the crisis. (Wernau, 3/13)
The Wall Street Journal:
Tightened Borders Re-Emerge In Fight Against Coronavirus Pandemic
As the new coronavirus jumped from country to country in recent weeks, the responses of their governments to the pandemic have highlighted how much national borders still matter in what seemed to be an increasingly borderless world. New travel and trade restrictions are popping up daily, policies that seemed unthinkable until recently and that disrupt economies used to global supply chains. A shortage of pharmaceutical components produced in China and other export curbs are already making the fight against the virus and other diseases more difficult. (Trofimov, 3/12)
The New York Times:
Two Women Fell Sick From The Coronavirus. One Survived.
The youn mothers didn’t tell their children they had the coronavirus. Mama was working hard, they said, to save sick people. Instead, Deng Danjing and Xia Sisi were fighting for their lives in the same hospitals where they worked, weak from fever and gasping for breath. Within a matter of weeks, they had gone from healthy medical professionals on the front lines of the epidemic in Wuhan, China, to coronavirus patients in critical condition. (Wee and Wang, 3/13)
And elsewhere —
CNN:
Ireland To Halt Coronavirus Spread By Closing Schools And Colleges
Schools, colleges and childcare facilities will be closed in the Republic of Ireland from Friday as part of a nationwide effort to halt the spread of coronavirus, the country's Prime Minister Leo Varadkar said Thursday. The closures will also apply to cultural institutions and will remain in place until March 29. Indoor gatherings of more than 100 people and outdoor gatherings of more than 500 people will also be canceled, he said at a press conference in Washington. (Spary and Alberti, 3/12)
The Hill:
Belgium Suspends All Classes Due To Coronavirus Outbreak
Belgium's Prime Minister Sophie Wilmès said on Thursday that all schools in the country would suspend classes starting Monday in attempt to curb the spread of the coronavirus in the small European nation. While classes would be canceled, schools will still be responsible for their pupils if their parents are unable to take off work or if they work in healthcare, according to Politico. (Johnson, 3/12)
