At the top of President Biden’s foreign policy agenda are COVID-19 and climate change. He has also pledged to make diplomacy and multilateralism the primary means of US foreign policy.
Interim findings from the Independent Panel for Pandemic Preparedness and Response paint a bleak picture of global failure. If things don’t improve, a future pandemic could be truly catastrophic.
Ilan Noy, Te Herenga Waka — Victoria University of Wellington and Ami Neuberger, Technion - Israel Institute of Technology
As the eradication of polio and the successful rollout of AIDS treatments have shown in the past, global cooperation in the face of COVID-19 is possible.
The stakes are high for China as WHO teams arrive to investigate the origins of the coronavirus. Beijing has presented a success story to the world — and will not accept any criticism.
Zoë McLaren, University of Maryland, Baltimore County
COVID-19 cases are skyrocketing across the US. Testing has ramped up over the past few months, but increasing hospitalizations, deaths and test-positivity rates show that the virus is out of control.
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
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