The WHO has been criticised for being slow to recognise the scale of the COVID-9 pandemic. We suggest a new protocol on infectious diseases to help with faster data collection and more open sharing.
A senior World Health Organisation envoy caused consternation by proclaiming lockdowns are not a good long-term strategy against COVID-19. But it’s true, and other subtler tactics are better in the long run.
With $1 billion in advance purchase agreements for COVID-19 vaccines, Canada has joined the vaccine nationalists: rich countries buying up more than half the global short-term supply of vaccine.
More than 170 countries have signed up to the Global Access (COVAX) initiative, but vaccine hoarding has already begun by many wealthy countries — leaving poorer nations potentially in the lurch.
A two-dose coronavirus vaccine would mean we need to produce 12-15 billion doses. This is roughly twice the world’s current total vaccine manufacturing capacity.
The government was initially praised for its handling of the COVID-19 pandemic but powerful interests could now be pushing its containment plans off course
Andrew Lakoff, USC Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences
The WHO is a health agency, not a political one. Yet political leaders have often criticized it. Still, the move by the US to pull out from the organization is unprecedented.
The actions of one country cannot be allowed to undermine decades of multilateral efforts to improve the health and well-being of all peoples of the world.
239 scientists have penned an open letter to the WHO arguing COVID-19 likely spreads through the air. But what is airborne transmission, and how strong is the evidence COVID-19 spreads this way?
The smallpox virus appears to have been with humanity for millennia before a global vaccination drive wiped it out. Current genome research suggests how smallpox spread and where it came from.
Director of Koi Tū, the Centre for Informed Futures; former Chief Science Advisor to the Prime Minister of New Zealand, University of Auckland, Waipapa Taumata Rau