Morning Briefing
Summaries of health policy coverage from major news organizations
Perspectives: Pros, Cons On Trump's Decision To Defund WHO; Meticulous Reopening Approach Of Germany's Chancellor Offers Guidelines For Other Countries
Los Angeles Times: For All Its Faults, We Need WHO Now More Than Ever
President Trump is not wrong to question the World Health Organization’s early response to the emerging coronavirus outbreak and its apparent deference to what we now know were false assurances by Chinese officials about the seriousness of the outbreak. But Trump is wrong to use these otherwise legitimate concerns as an excuse to cut off U.S. contributions to the international health agency until it can satisfy his demand for answers and undertake fundamental structural reforms. (4/16)
Fox News: Coronavirus Reopening — If Health Restrictions Rolled Back Too Soon This Could Happen
If all public health measures were immediately lifted, the pandemic could reignite with full fury. At this point, there is no vaccine. There are no effective drugs. Testing is still woefully inadequate. And the vast majority of people are still completely susceptible to infection. (Robert Siegel, 4/15)
The Wall Street Journal: A Reckoning For The WHO
President Trump’s Tuesday decision to withhold funding from the World Health Organization (WHO) should shatter the pretensions of the agency’s leaders, who had taken American support for granted. While the U.S. investigates the degraded agency’s Covid-19 failures, the White House can outline a path for WHO to regain America’s confidence. “WHO failed in its basic duty and must be held accountable,” said Mr. Trump, who placed a hold on funding for 60 to 90 days. He added that if the agency had done its job, “this would have saved thousands of lives and avoided world-wide economic damage.” The President isn’t exaggerating. (4/15)
Seattle Times: WHO Needs Funding, Not Scapegoating
Congress must quickly reverse President Donald Trump’s defunding of the World Health Organization. This should be a bipartisan priority, to provide U.S. leadership in combating the worldwide pandemic and support WHO’s broader, ongoing global-health mission. The WHO made errors in its initial response to the coronavirus but so did Trump, who is scapegoating and undermining a critical health organization when it’s desperately needed to save lives. As Bill Gates said on Twitter, the world needs WHO now more than ever. (4/15)
Bloomberg: Meticulous Germany Knows How To Handle A Pandemic
It’s still early days in this pandemic, but not too early to venture a prediction: Germany and its chancellor, Angela Merkel, will come out of it looking quite good. What’s more, she may look even better as the outbreak enters its second phase, in which lockdowns gradually yield to uneasy resumptions of social and economic life. That’s because this pandemic won’t end with a made-for-television big bang. It’ll be managed patiently into remission, for a long time and through many setbacks, with sobriety, incrementalism and nuance. And, at the risk of stereotyping, these just happen to be traits characteristic of modern Germany generally, and Merkel in particular. (Andreas Kluth, 4/16)
The Wall Street Journal: Presidential Power Is Limited But Vast
President Trump has come under attack this week for saying he has “absolute authority” to reopen the economy. He doesn’t—his authority is limited. But while the president can’t simply order the entire economy to reopen on his own signature, neither is the matter entirely up to states and their governors. The two sides of this debate are mostly talking past each other. The federal government’s powers are limited and enumerated and don’t include a “general police power” to regulate community health and welfare. That authority rests principally with the states and includes the power to impose coercive measures such as mandatory vaccination, as the Supreme Court held in Jacobson v. Massachusetts (1905). Nor may the federal government commandeer state personnel and resources to achieve its ends or otherwise coerce the states into a particular course of conduct. There is no dispute about these respective state and federal powers. (David B. Rivkin Jr. and Lee A. Casey, 4/15)
The Washington Post: We’ve Never Backed A Democrat For President. But Trump Must Be Defeated.
This November, Americans will cast their most consequential votes since Abraham Lincoln’s reelection in 1864. We confront a constellation of crises: a public health emergency not seen in a century, an economic collapse set to rival the Great Depression, and a world where American leadership is absent and dangers rise in the vacuum. Today, the United States is beset with a president who was unprepared for the burden of the presidency and who has made plain his deficits in leadership, management, intelligence and morality. When we founded the Lincoln Project, we did so with a clear mission: to defeat President Trump in November. Publicly supporting a Democratic nominee for president is a first for all of us. (George T. Conway III, Reed Galen, Steve Schmidt, John Weaver and Rick Wilson, 4/15)
The Washington Post: Captain Trump Hits The Rocks
As the captain propounds powerful gibberish, the mutiny builds. Regional blocs make their own pandemic-recovery plans. Allies condemn his assault on the WHO. Republican Sen. Susan Collins (Maine) tells Politico that Trump has been “very uneven.” Even Trump-friendly outlets such as Fox News and the Wall Street Journal editorial page offer some criticism. (Dana Millbank, 4/15)
The New York Times: I’m Overseeing The Coronavirus Relief Bill. The Strings Aren’t Attached.
Congress recently gave the Treasury Department and the Federal Reserve broad authority to lend out trillions of dollars to businesses, states and municipalities struggling because of coronavirus distancing orders. The key question is whether that money ends up helping working people or flows instead to the managers, executives and investors who have already taken so much of the income gains in the past decade. (Bharat Ramamurti, 4/16)
The Washington Post: State Department Cables Warned Of Safety Issues At Wuhan Lab Studying Bat Coronaviruses
Two years before the novel coronavirus pandemic upended the world, U.S. Embassy officials visited a Chinese research facility in the city of Wuhan several times and sent two official warnings back to Washington about inadequate safety at the lab, which was conducting risky studies on coronaviruses from bats. The cables have fueled discussions inside the U.S. government about whether this or another Wuhan lab was the source of the virus — even though conclusive proof has yet to emerge. (Josh Rogin, 4/14)
The Washington Post: Global Democracy Will Be Weakened Without Fair Elections. South Korea Shows They’re Possible.
South Korean voters were at the polls Wednesday, spaced at three-foot intervals and wearing masks and state-supplied gloves. Provided they passed a temperature screening, they were able to vote in national parliamentary elections. Turnout was expected to be above 70 percent, thanks in part to early voting and balloting by mail for covid-19 patients, and it could exceed that of the previous legislative election four years ago. All that is evidence of an effective response to the coronavirus pandemic by the ruling Democratic Party of President Moon Jae-in, which is likely to be rewarded as a result. (4/15)
Cincinnati Enquirer: COVID-19 Exposed Underfunded Public Health System
While Greater Cincinnati is under a stay-at-home order, many of us are watching news that is dominated by stories of the breakdowns in the American health care system. A sudden, widespread public health crisis will intensify existing problems, but with COVID-19 they are on full display. (Michelle Dillingham, 4/14)
Boston Globe: Mass. Legislature Must Protect Low-Income And Minority Populations From Coronavirus
Last week marked one month since the coronavirus state of emergency was declared in Massachusetts. In that time, state government has been fighting this public health battle with one hand behind its back. Governor Charlie Baker and Health and Human Services Secretary Marylou Sudders have done an admirable (though not perfect) job so far establishing a COVID-19 Response Command Center, advising people to stay at home, redeploying health care resources, fighting for and distributing scarce personal protective equipment for health care workers, and coordinating field hospitals for the surge. It’s past time for the Legislature to step up with the same kind of urgency. (Sonia Chang-Díaz, Maria Robinson, and Liz Miranda, 4/15)
