Author: Dr. Ronald St. John
Throughout history there have been outbreaks of infectious diseases. The well-known plague epidemic (Black Death) was a devastating global epidemic of bubonic plague that struck Europe and Asia in the mid-1300s, wiping out an estimated one-third of the population. Disease outbreaks, when large in scope, have been referred to as epidemics. More recently, epidemics that have involved or might involve the global population have been labelled as pandemics.
When does an epidemic become a pandemic? There is no single accepted definition of the term pandemic (ref: Journal of Infectious Diseases, Vol. 200:7, 1 October 2009). Some considerations for labelling an outbreak as a pandemic include outbreaks of diseases:
For purposes of this paper, a pandemic is an epidemic occurring worldwide, or over a very wide area, crossing international boundaries and usually affecting a large number of people.(1)
The worst kinds of pathogens — ones with the highest mortality rates and limited countermeasures — are increasing due to population increases, population density, more global travel, and changing migratory and environmental patterns that result in encroachment upon animal and other populations.
Until some of the basic conditions that favour the expansion of an epidemic to a pandemic are addressed, future pandemics are inevitable. Early detection and coupled with efficient and effective management of a rapid response to contain a disease outbreak at the local level will hopefully minimize the health impact on the global population.
However, much more attention is warranted. Many pandemics are zoonoses — diseases that can be transmitted to humans from animals. Influenza, tuberculosis, bubonic plague, and AIDS (Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome) are examples. In fact, today the most promising work on the spread of infectious diseases is being carried out by physicians specializing in epidemiology, veterinary and environmental medicine, working jointly as an inter-disciplinary approach called “One Health.” As wildlife habitats are destroyed to make room for human settlements, and as local climates change with global warming, there are new opportunities for zoonoses to spread. One Health researcher seek to identify these situations quickly, as they emerge worldwide.
In previous times, some virulent diseases had a self-limiting effect; infected people might die quickly -—before they had time to spread their pathogens widely. However, the ease of air travel now makes it possible for infected persons to spread a disease to other continents even before showing symptoms themselves. Thus, the risk of pandemics remains high, despite the spread of advanced medical technology.
Estimates about the probability of a virulent global pandemic are only guesses, but even the most ominous predictions cannot be dismissed. Bill Gates, who is allocating large funds to solving global health problems, sees pandemics as the greatest immediate threat to humanity. He warns that an influenza epidemic alone may kill over 30 million people in six months.(5) Another researcher, David Mannheim, predicts an even more dire possibility. Noting that it is more difficult than ever before to contain an epidemic through local quarantines, he argues that “the evolving nature of the risk means natural pandemics may pose a realistic threat to human civilization.(6).
References for this article can be seen at the Footnotes 3 page on this website (link will open in a new page).
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GAZA WAR MAY CAUSE MORE DEATHS FROM DISEASE THAN BOMBINGS
The head of the UN health agency has warned about the high risk of diseases spreading among those displaced by the violence. Writing on X, formerly Twitter, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus reiterated dire assessments that “given the living conditions and lack of health care, more people could die from diseases than from the bombing.
Latest More than 1.8 million Gazans — around 80 percent of the population in the enclave — have been displaced since 7 October, which left 1,200 dead and some 240 taken hostage.
RE: EPISODE 537 COMPLEX EMERGENCIES
There is probably a lot of truth in MSF’s notion that they need advice from anthropologists to get around the hang-ups of local people. That is based on the assumption that hang-ups (psychological obstacles to use of medical knowledge) are derived mostly from long-standing cultural traditions. Some are, but nowadays mostly they aren’t. More often the irrational rejection of such things as vaccines for Covid is not rooted in tradition or culture but an emerging, transient symbol of “tribal identity.” For example, there is no truck-drivers’ culture forbidding the use of masks or vaccines, but truck drivers pick up the resistance to masks and vaccines as a new badge of identity.
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While anthropologists are pretty good at identifying cultural traditions, they are no better than the rest of us at prescribing cures for these transient “identity badges.” Unfortunately, that is the kind of challenge for which social scientists lack any special insight.
58% of Human Infectious Diseases Can Be Worsened By Climate Change: 77 000 Studies Were Scoured To Map The Pathways
Tristan McKenzie, Camilo Mora, and Hannah von Hammerstein | The Conversation | 8 August 2022
“Climate change can exacerbate a full 58% of the infectious diseases that humans come in contact with worldwide, from common waterborne viruses to deadly diseases like plague, our new research shows.
Our team of environment and health scientists reviewed decades of scientific papers on all known pathogenic disease pathogens to create a map of the human risks aggravated by climate-related hazards.
The numbers were jarring. Of 375 human diseases, we found that 218 of them, well over half, can be affected by climate change.
Flooding, for example, can spread hepatitis. Rising temperatures can expand the life of mosquitoes carrying malaria. Droughts can bring rodents infected with hantavirus into communities as they search for food.
With climate change influencing more than 1,000 transmission pathways like those and climate hazards increasingly globally, we concluded that expecting societies to successfully adapt to all of them isn’t a realistic option. The world will need to reduce the greenhouse gas emissions that are driving climate change to reduce these risks.”
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To be able to prevent global health crises, humanity needs a comprehensive understanding of the pathways and the magnitude with which climate change might affect pathogenic diseases.
We focused on 10 climate-related hazards linked to rising greenhouse gas emissions: atmospheric warming, heat waves, drought, wildfires, heavy precipitation, flooding, storms, sea-level rise, ocean warming and land cover change. Then we looked for studies discussing specific and quantifiable observations of human disease occurrences linked to those hazards.
In total, we reviewed over 77,000 scientific papers. Of those, 830 papers had a climatic hazard affecting a specific disease in an explicit place and/or time, allowing us to create a database of climatic hazards, transmission pathways, pathogens and diseases. An interactive map of every pathway between hazard and pathogen is available online.
The largest number of diseases aggravated by climate change involved vector-borne transmission, such as those spread by mosquitoes, bats or rodents. Looking at the type of climate hazard, the majority were associated with atmospheric warming (160 diseases), heavy precipitation (122) and flooding (121).
How climate influences pathogen risk
We found four key ways climatic hazards interact with pathogens and humans:
1. Climate-related hazards bring pathogens closer to people.
In some cases, climate-related hazards are shifting the ranges of animals and organisms that can act as vectors for dangerous pathogenic diseases.
For example, warming or changes in precipitation patterns can alter the distribution of mosquitoes, which are vectors of numerous human pathogenic diseases. In recent decades, geographic changes in outbreaks of mosquito-borne diseases such as malaria and dengue have been linked to these climatic hazards.
2. Climate-related hazards bring people closer to pathogens.
Climate disasters can also alter human behavior patterns in ways that increase their chances of being exposed to pathogens. For example, during heat waves, people often spend more time in water, which can lead to an increase in waterborne disease outbreaks.
Notably, Vibrio-associated infections increased substantially in Sweden and Finland following a heat wave in northern Scandinavia in 2014.
3. Climate-related hazards enhance pathogens.
In some cases, climate-related hazards have led to either environmental conditions that can increase opportunities for pathogens to interact with vectors or increase the ability of pathogens to cause severe illness in humans.
For example, standing water left by heavy precipitation and flooding can provide breeding grounds for mosquitoes, leading to increased transmission of diseases such as yellow fever, dengue, malaria, West Nile fever and leishmaniasis.
Studies have shown that rising temperatures may also help viruses become more resistant to heat, resulting in increased disease severity as pathogens become better able to adapt to fever in the human body.
For instance, studies have suggested that rising global temperatures are leading to increased heat tolerance of fungal pathogens. The sudden appearance on multiple continents of treatment-resistant human infections of Candida auris, a fungus that was previously nonpathogenic to humans, has been associated with increasing global temperatures. Similarly, fungi in urban environments have been shown to be more heat tolerant than those in rural areas, which tend to be cooler.
Studies have shown that rising temperatures may also help viruses become more resistant to heat, resulting in increased disease severity as pathogens become better able to adapt to fever in the human body.
For instance, studies have suggested that rising global temperatures are leading to increased heat tolerance of fungal pathogens. The sudden appearance on multiple continents of treatment-resistant human infections of Candida auris, a fungus that was previously nonpathogenic to humans, has been associated with increasing global temperatures. Similarly, fungi in urban environments have been shown to be more heat tolerant than those in rural areas, which tend to be cooler.
Link: https://theconversation.com/58-of-human-infectious-diseases-can-be-worsened-by-climate-change-we-scoured-77-000-studies-to-map-the-pathways-188256
So It was the Wet Market After All!
Today another study concluded that COVID did begin in the wet market of Wuhan, not that viriology research centre. Maybe that will put an end to the speculation. It should certainly reinforce the notion that wet markets should be banned. Bringing all those different species together means they can share diseases and pass them on to humans. This is a wet market in Singapore. It looks pretty well organized, but it can’t be a great place to spend time.
How to Protect the World from Ultra-Targeted Biological Weapons
Kim Tong-Hyung | The Diplomat | 8 October 2021
“The World Health Organization has started shipping COVID-19 medical supplies into North Korea, a possible sign that Pyongyang is easing one of the world’s strictest pandemic border closures to receive outside help.
WHO said in a weekly monitoring report that it has started the shipment of essential COVID-19 medical supplies through the Chinese port of Dalian for “strategic stockpiling and further dispatch” to North Korea.
Edwin Salvador, WHO’s representative to North Korea, said in an email to the Associated Press Thursday that some items, including emergency health kits and medicine, have reached the North Korean port of Nampo after North Korean authorities allowed the WHO and other U.N. agencies to send supplies that had been stuck in Dalian.”
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“Consequently, we have been able to transport some of our items by ship to Nampo … (including) emergency health kits, medicines, and medical supplies that would support essential health services at primary health care centers,” Salvador said. “We are informed that WHO items along with supplies sent by other U.N. agencies are currently still under quarantine at the seaport.”
Describing its anti-virus campaign was a matter of “national existence,” North Korea had severely restricted cross-border traffic and trade for the past two years despite the strain on its already crippled economy.
U.N. human rights investigators in August asked the North’s government to clarify allegations that it ordered troops to shoot on sight any trespassers who cross its borders in violation of its pandemic closing.
While North Korea has yet to report a single case of COVID-19, outside experts widely doubt it escaped the illness that had touched nearly every other place in the world.
The North has told WHO it has tested 40,700 people for the coronavirus through September 23 and that all the tests were negative. Those tested in the last week reported included 94 people with influenza-like illnesses or other symptoms and 573 health care workers, according to the WHO report.
Experts say an epidemic in North Korea could be devastating, considering its poor health care system and chronic lack of medical supplies.
But despite implementing severe border controls, North Korea hasn’t shown the same kind of urgency for vaccines even as its mass immunization campaign continues to be delayed amid global shortages.
Analysts say North Korea could be uneasy about international monitoring requirements that would be attached to the vaccines it receives from the outside world. There are also views that leader Kim Jong Un has domestic political motivations to tighten the country’s self-imposed lockdown as he calls for unity and tries to solidify his grip on power while navigating perhaps his toughest moment after nearly a decade of rule.
Salvador said the WHO is continuing to work with North Korean officials so that they complete the technical requirements for receiving vaccines through the U.N.-backed COVAX distribution program. He said the North has developed a national deployment plan to use as reference when it begins its vaccine rollout.
The latest WHO report came weeks after Kim during a ruling party meeting ordered officials to wage a tougher anti-virus campaign in “our style” after he turned down some foreign COVID-19 vaccines offered via COVAX.
UNICEF, which procures and delivers vaccines on behalf of the COVAX distribution program, said last month that North Korea proposed its allotment of about 3 million Sinovac shots be sent to severely affected countries instead.
Some analysts say the North is angling to receive more effective jabs amid questions about the Sinovac vaccine’s effectiveness.
UNICEF said the North Korean health ministry said it will continue to communicate with COVAX over future vaccines.
Link: https://thediplomat.com/2021/10/who-starts-shipping-covid-19-medical-supplies-to-north-korea/
How to Protect the World from Ultra-Targeted Biological Weapons
Filippa Lentzos | Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists | 7 December 2020
“The potential reach of the state into our individual biology and genetic makeup is expanding at an unprecedented rate. Global responses to the COVID-19 pandemic have crystallized just how quickly and readily machines, algorithms, and computing power can be combined with biological data and used in technologies that subjugate bodies and control populations.”
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As the Chinese city of Wuhan went into lockdown, the authorities carried out large-scale remote temperature measurements of households in apartment complexes through drones equipped with infrared cameras. Drones were also used to patrol public places, tracking whether people were travelling outside without face masks or violating other quarantine rules. Chinese police forces debuted augmented reality (AR) smart glasses powered by artificial intelligence (AI) capabilities, designed to recognize individuals with potential COVID-19 symptoms. The glasses have facial recognition capability to identify and profile individuals in real-time and can also record photos and videos. As Wuhan started to open up again, the authorities introduced “Health Code,” an app people were required to use when entering and exiting residential areas, supermarkets, subways, and taxis, among other spaces. The app stores your personal information, including your ID number, where you live, whether you have been with people carrying the virus, and what symptoms they had. As you touch in or out on entering or exiting, the app gives you a colour: green means you can go anywhere, yellow means you have to quarantine for 7 days, red for 14 days. The app also surreptitiously collects—and shares with the police—your location data.
And this type of surveillance wasn’t used just in China. A range of countries have adopted intrusive and coercive forms of surveillance and use of personal and biological data reminiscent of dystopian novels like Nineteen Eighty-Four and Brave New World. As other countries went into lockdown, surveillance cameras with facial recognition tracked quarantine evaders or gauged elevated temperatures of potentially infected individuals in crowds. Fine-grained location data transmitted from mobile phones determined how many people were obeying lockdown orders, fever-detecting cameras screened travellers arriving at airports, and algorithms monitored social media posts for signs of COVID-19’s spread. Contact-tracing apps, centrally storing user interactions, provide “social graphs” of who you have physically met over a period of time. “Immunity passports” or “risk free certificates” combine facial recognition technology with COVID-19 testing and medical records.
As genomic technologies develop and converge with AI, machine learning, automation, affective computing, and robotics, an ever more refined record of our biometrics, emotions, and behaviors will be captured and analysed. Governments and, increasingly, private companies will be able to sort, categorize, trade, and use biological data far more precisely than ever before, creating unprecedented possibilities for social and biological control. Some even argue that the new geopolitical order will be based on the commodification of a new resource emerging from the convergence of the artificial intelligence and biotech industries: our biological and genomic data.
These game-changing developments will deeply impact how we view health and treat disease, how long we live, and how we consider our place on the biological continuum. They will also radically transform the dual-use nature of biological research, medicine, and health care and create the possibility of novel biological weapons that target particular groups of people and even individuals. In the coming decade, managing the fast and broad technological advances now under way will require new governance structures that draw on individuals and groups with cross-sectoral expertise—from business and academia to politics and defense—to identify emerging security risks and make recommendations for dealing with them.
Adding computing power to bioinformatics
Genomic technologies are driving a vast expansion in genomic data, from gene sequences and entire genomes to data that links genes to specific functions and other types of metadata for humans, other animals, plants, and microbes. This data is becoming increasingly digitized, and computational power is significantly changing how genomic data is analysed. The integration of AI computation into biology opens up new possibilities for understanding how genetic differences shape the development of living organisms, including ourselves, and how these differences make us and the rest of the living world susceptible to diseases and disorders, and responsive to drugs and treatments.
Advanced pattern recognition and the abstraction of statistical relationships from data—the hallmarks of machine and deep learning—have shown significant potential to help researchers make sense of complex genomic data sets and extract clinically relevant findings. Take two prominent examples: functional genomics and tailored drug discovery.
The ability of machine learning to link, correlate, and analyse data is particularly useful for interpreting gene functions and identifying genetic markers responsible for certain diseases, as one expert report highlights. Known as functional genomics, this field of research makes it possible to predict how likely someone is to develop diseases such as type 1 diabetes or breast cancer or to develop certain traits and capabilities, such as height or resistance to specific pathogens, that result from complex genetic influences. Deep learning also enables computer-based experimentation for functional genomics, and work is underway to predict how genetic sequences might function before they are assembled—even if the combination has not been seen in nature. Computational power has also helped researchers understand the evolving relationship between our genotypes, phenotypes (i.e. physical characteristics), and microbiomes (the bacteria and viruses that live on and inside the human body), and to improve our genotype-phenotype functional knowledge of pathogens.
Private industry has been instrumental in developing data mining techniques. Google’s genomic AI platform, DeepVariant, for example, has been at the forefront of developing an automated, deep learning approach to identifying genetic variants in an individual genome from billions of short sequences.
Adding computational power to drug development facilitates “parallel read operations of 10 billion nucleic acid molecules in a single experiment,” according to another expert report, and can increase experimental precision to single molecule manipulations. Emphasizing biological modelling, the report notes that the use of deep learning to develop new drug candidates has overcome many limitations of physics-based models, enabling models to be built from simple representations of chemical and biological entities and automating suggestions of synthesizable structures with improved properties. It also highlights how the convergence of automation with evolutionary algorithms vastly expands the number of materials that can be synthesized, tested, and optimized.
In developing new drug candidates, a robot can reportedly screen over 10,000 compounds per day through conventional “brute-force” tactics. However, while simple to automate, this approach is still relatively slow and wasteful; every compound in the library needs to be tested. The first AI robot to automate early-stage drug design came on stream in 2015. Called “Eve,” it was developed by researchers at the Universities of Aberystwyth and Cambridge, who earlier had developed “Adam,” a machine to independently discover scientific knowledge. To make drug candidate screening processes intelligent, Eve randomly selects a subset of compounds from a library, carries out various tests on them, and, based on the compounds that pass the tests, uses statistics and machine learning to predict new structures that might score even better.
Private companies also play a significant contributing role in developing machine learning for drug development. The pharmaceutical giant Novartis, for example, used computational power to develop a vaccine in less than three months from the first reported human infections of H7N9 influenza virus. In another example, Deep Genomics uses its AI platform to map pathological genetic pathways to inform drug development.
Advances in function genomics and drug discovery, as well as in other areas, offer the possibility of developing bespoke, or personalized, treatments using machine learning analysis of genomic and health data. “Precision public health” aims to deliver the right intervention to the right population at the right time, and it is already beginning to deliver genomic-based interventions for health and health care. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention promotes its wide use of artificial intelligence and machine learning to improve public health surveillance (forecasting of influenza for example) and disease detection, mitigation, and elimination. While still in its early days, precision medicine—spanning personalized vaccines and antibodies, personalized treatment relying on virology and microbe research, personalized cancer treatments, and treatments involving in vivo gene editing—is also starting to become a reality.
A number of private companies, such as Tempus, IBM, and Pfizer, are actively exploring possibilities, though these efforts are still mostly focused on understanding how machine learning could help identify genetic markers or patients that should or could be candidates for personalized treatments. Experts emphasize that there is “still pervasive uncertainty about how accurate deep machine-learning will be in drawing useful interferences between the different datasets that make our biology.”
Rising security concerns
Various risk assessment frameworks have been used to get a sense of the potential security risks arising from the mix of artificial intelligence and biotechnology. But balancing the generality needed to capture a broad scope of converging technologies in the life sciences with the need to maintain enough specificity to capture nuances has proved difficult. The main security concerns boil down to worries that, if the intent were there, the convergence of emerging technologies could be used to speed up the identification of harmful genes or DNA sequences. More specifically, there are concerns that adding advanced pattern recognition to genomic data could significantly facilitate: the enhancement of pathogens to make them more dangerous; the modification of low-risk pathogens to become high-impact; the engineering of entirely new pathogens; or even the re-creation of extinct, high-impact pathogens like the variola virus that causes smallpox. These possibilities are coming at a time when new delivery mechanisms for transporting pathogens into human bodies are also being developed. In addition to the bombs, missiles, cluster bombs, sprayers, and injection devices of past biowarfare programs, it could now also be possible to use drones, nano-robots, even insects.
Added to these pathogen-specific risks are traditional cyber risks and “cyber-biosecurity” risks focused particularly on the bioeconomy. Cyber-biosecurity risks include waging adversarial attacks on automated bio-computing systems, biotech supply chains, or strategic cyber-biosecurity infrastructure. Malicious actors could, for example, use AI malware to co-opt networks of sensors and impact control decisions on biotech supply chains with the intent to damage, destroy, or contaminate vital stocks of vaccines, antibiotics, cell, or immune therapies. In another scenario, AI malware could be used to automate data manipulation with the intent to falsify, erase, or steal intelligence within large curations of genomics data. Such data poisoning could affect how pathogens are detected and analysed. It could also affect biointelligence on complex diseases in subpopulations collected over many years
The merger of the biological data revolution with computing power has created another serious security concern: ultra-targeted biological warfare. In past biowarfare programs, weapons targeted their intended victims through geographic location. Advances in biotechnology open up the possibility that malicious actors could deploy a biological weapon over a broad geographic area but only affect targeted groups of people, or even individuals.
The possibility of such “genetic weapons” was first discussed in the biological arms control community in the 1990s, as the Human Genome Project to map the full complement of human genes got underway. The UK government said “it cannot be ruled out that information from such genetic research could be considered for the design of weapons targeted against specific ethnic or racial groups.” The British Medical Association cautioned that “the differential susceptibility of different populations to various diseases” had been considered in the past, and that “whilst we should hope that genetic weapons are never developed, it would be a great mistake to assume that they never can be, and therefore that we can safely afford to ignore them as a future possibility.” A report from the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) spoke of the potential for “future development of weapons of mass extermination which could be used for genocide.”
Developments in genomic technologies and other emerging technologies, especially machine and deep learning, have spurred renewed concerns. “Access to millions of human genomes—often with directly associated clinical data—means that bioinformaticists can begin to map infection susceptibilities in specific populations,” a recent report from the United Nations Institute for Disarmament Research warned. A United Nations University report, meanwhile, asserts that “deep learning may lead to the identification of ‘precision maladies,’ which are the genetic functions that code for vulnerabilities and interconnections between the immune system and microbiome. Using this form of bio-intelligence, malicious actors could engineer pathogens that are tailored to target mechanisms critical in the immune system or the microbiome of specific subpopulations.” A 2018 National Academies of Sciences report suggests “[a]ctors may consider designing a bioweapon to target particular subpopulations based on their genes or prior exposure to vaccines, or even seek to suppress the immune system of victims to ‘prime’ a population for a subsequent attack. These capabilities, which were feared decades ago but never reached any plausible capability, may be made increasingly feasible by the widespread availability of health and genomic data.”
It is important to note that there are barriers limiting access to targeted biological weapons. The technical base, expertise, and funding required for the design of a targeted biological weapon suggest that only a significantly resourceful and motivated actor would be likely to explore this possibility.
Re-envisioning biological disarmament
Experts at SIPRI have suggested that, because of the complexity required to create them, ultra-targeted biological weapons are relatively unlikely to be used: “If the purpose is to harm a specific individual or group, most malevolent actors would surely resort to more low-tech or direct methods, such as firearms or poison.” This suggestion may be accurate, but it is not, unfortunately, a sufficient basis for biological arms control in the 21st century. As one of the great champions of biological disarmament, Matthew Meselson, professor of molecular biology at Harvard University, reflected in 2000 as he contemplated the century ahead in an essay on averting the hostile exploitation of biotechnology: “[A]s our ability to modify fundamental life processes continues its rapid advance, we will be able not only to devise additional ways to destroy life but will also become able to manipulate it—including the processes of cognition, development, reproduction and inheritance… Therein could lie unprecedented opportunities for violence, coercion, repression, or subjugation.”
The current disarmament regime, the Biological Weapons Convention, has been in force since 1975. The treaty comprehensively prohibits biological weapons, understood as biological agents used for harmful purposes, and countries that are party to the treaty agree that it unequivocally covers all microbial or other biological agents or toxins, naturally or artificially created or altered, as well as their components, whatever their origin or method of production.
On the whole, this covers the pathogen-specific risks and risks of ultra-targeted biological weapons. Indeed, the UK government, which first raised the issue of genetic weapons as a possibility in the mid 1990s, specifically stated that genetic weapons would be a “clear contravention” of the treaty. Cyber-biosecurity risks are not covered by the BWC, but the BWC and arms control treaties more generally are not appropriate instruments to address these sorts of risks.
Where there might be some uncertainty around the coverage of the BWC is where the harms do not involve biological agents. Developments in science and technology are making novel biological weapons conceivable that, instead of using bacteria or viruses to make us sick, directly target the immune, nervous or endocrine systems, the microbiome, or even the genome by interfering with, or manipulating, biological processes. This could be achieved, for example, by using a construct based on synthetic structures created or inspired by DNA or RNA, but not qualifying as DNA, RNA, or any other known, naturally occurring nucleic acid. In this sort of case, the coverage of the BWC is less clear, but the intent of the treaty to prohibit such harm is beyond doubt.
The real challenge for the treaty, however, is not in its coverage but in ensuring that countries comply with it and live up to their obligations. This oversight is particularly difficult because the relevant materials, equipment, and technical know-how are diffused across multiple and varied scientific disciplines and sectors—and they are increasingly in private, rather than public, hands. Moreover, biological agents themselves exist in nature and are living organisms generally capable of natural reproduction and replication.
The dual-use nature of biology and the challenges it poses for compliance assessment was recognized in the early phase of the negotiations on the treaty. In a 1968 statement to the predecessor of the Conference on Disarmament, the United Kingdom noted, for instance, that no verification is possible in the sense of the term as we normally use it in disarmament discussions. In other words, it was not considered possible to verify the BWC with the same level of accuracy and reliability as the verification of nuclear treaties like the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT), which was negotiated immediately prior to the BWC. Consequently, Article I of the BWC—through which states “agree to never under any circumstances acquire or retain biological weapons”—is therefore vague in demarcating the borders of prohibited and legitimate activities. Article I merely refers to biological agents “of types and in quantities that have no justification for prophylactic, protective, or other peaceful purposes.”
The main responsibility for compliance assessment in the BWC falls on the countries that are party to it, unlike in its sister-conventions, the Chemical Weapons Convention and the NPT, where compliance assessment is tasked to the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) and the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). In the BWC, each country relies on its own resources to assess other countries’ compliance. The United Nations Security Council acts as the final arbitrator on allegations of compliance breaches—though it has not to date been requested to investigate any allegations. The role of the treaty’s Implementation Support Unit is purely to support countries in their efforts to implement the BWC.
The “general purpose criterion” of the BWC means the treaty permits almost any kind of biological research for defensive or protective purposes. Some such work is justifiable. Other research edges closer to the blurred line between defensive and offensive work. Distinguishing permitted biodefense projects from those that are prohibited is difficult; one cannot just assess the facilities, equipment, material, and activities involved, but must also examine and interpret the purpose, or intent, of those activities.
A series of significant and accelerating advances in abilities to manipulate genes and biological systems have made Cold War-era tools of compliance assessment increasingly outdated. Among those new abilities are:
To establish the intent of biological research, it is not enough to simply count fermenters, measure the sizes of autoclaves, and limit amounts of growth media. A growing number of countries recognize that biology, to a large extent, defies material accountancy-type verification methodologies. The United Kingdom, for instance, recently noted that BWC compliance is “much more one of transparency, insight, and candour, rather than material balances or counting discrete objects such as fermenters.”
Somewhat ironically in our ever-increasing digital world, the last few years has seen a move away from strictly quantitative approaches and binary models of compliance assessment in biological arms control toward more qualitative methods. Leading countries are exploring means of demonstrating good practices and responsible science through new voluntary initiatives that enable them to demonstrate transparency and build trust—initiatives such as peer review, implementation review, and transparency visits. These information-sharing initiatives emphasize interaction and flexibility, expert-level exchanges of best practices rather than just on-site monitoring, and a broad conception of relevant laboratories and facilities—and they have been deemed to add real value to compliance judgements by participating states.
Similarly, as a way to complement laws and regulations around biosecurity, civil society groups have led the development of norm-building controls like codes of conduct, prizes, awards, competitions, and other incentives for good behavior. The flip-side—leveraging reputational risks, corporate shaming, and social pressures for poor behavior—is also beginning to be explored. It has become abundantly clear that, in the Fourth Industrial Revolution, compliance with the Biological Weapons Convention needs to be less about verifying a binary state—being “in compliance” or “not in compliance”—and more about analyzing justifications provided for the activities in question and managing dual use potential.
For biological arms control and the UN more generally, the broader challenges involve extending the management regime to stakeholders other than countries, particularly to private industry and civil society groups but also others, and maintaining contemporary relevance as the global forum for security debates around emerging technologies. Technologies, like biotechnologies, that have traditionally been siloed in elite institutions and national labs and monitored by national governments are now increasingly accessible to and even controlled by private tech platforms and research communities around the world. In the era of AI, limiting access to intangible knowledge and computerized tools involving dual use research will only become more difficult.
There is a narrowing window of opportunity to structurally evolve biological arms control. One way to do this—and to link the biological field with other emerging technologies—is to actively encourage collaborations across the fields of AI, cyber, and biotechnologies to develop responsible security practices through which scientists learn about each converging field and its impact on dual use research. Yet, on its own, this type of collaboration is not enough to protect the world from misuse of powerful and converging technologies.
One idea for improving the management of broad and fast technological advances involves a World Economic Forum-like “network of influence,” composed of exceptional individuals from business, academia, politics, defense, civil society, and international organizations, to act as a global Board of Trustees to oversee developments relevant to biological threats in science, business, defense, and politics and to decide on concerted cross-sector actions. A similar idea—not limited to the biological field but cutting across emerging technologies—would develop a “Global Foresight Observatory” comprising a constellation of key public and private sector stakeholders convened by a strategic foresight team within the UN. The Board of Trustees or the Global Foresight Observatory could be supplemented by a secondary oversight layer that enrolls individuals and select institutions in key positions to act as “sentinels.” These sentinels could have dual functions: first, to actively promote responsible science and innovation, and second, to identify security risks for consideration by the Board or the Observatory.
These new governance structures could be supplemented by political initiatives—AI and bioinformatics groups, for example—to establish a new type of transparency, confidence-building, and BWC compliance assessment, and to support the prevention of biological weapons development and the management of dual use biological research. The colossal challenges of converging technologies will require bold ideas like these to re-envision future biological arms control.
Link: https://thebulletin.org/premium/2020-12/how-to-protect-the-world-from-ultra-targeted-biological-weapons/
Vaccination passports.
An Asian Pandemic Success Story: What SARS Taught Governments About Fighting Infectious Disease
Swee Kheng Khor and David Heymann. September 21, 2020
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A NEW SOCIAL CONTRACT
PATIENT PROGRESS
I believe I heard that, although the CDC has authorized vaccinated people to stop wearing masks, the airlines are continuing to insist upon it. So they must have the power to make that decision on their own, which is probably a good thing, though I am not sure it always is.
Airlines cannot regulate their own health-protection practices
Federal governments’ subservience to all things big money is reflected in their respective regulators’ passiveness in allowing airline corporations to make the life-risking decision to end their passenger seating distancing measures.
It’s yet further proof that big business basically calls the consumer-health shots, when it should be our non-lobbied elected officials.
When the COVID-19 crisis began, the most influential voice to have the ear of Canada’s government, for example, likely were the largest corporations, particularly the airlines; the result was resistance against an immediate halt in international commerce, including overseas flights, weeks of delay that may have translated into many Canadian COVID-19 deaths.
I believe similar governmental behavior toward national airlines was evident in the U.S. and Britain.
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(PM Justin Trudeau’s recent reputation-damaging experience with SNC-Lavalin Group Inc. is one scandalized example. How many more are there about which we’ll never learn?)
Also concerning is that corporate representatives actually write bills for our governing representatives to vote for and have implemented, typically word for word (supposedly to save the elected officials their time).
A common government refrain prevails, that best business practices are best decided by business itself. Yet this was proven false by, as a most consequential example, Boeing’s decision to delay the grounding of its ill-fated 737 Max planes, regardless of indicators, including employee warnings, they should be grounded and serious software glitches corrected.
CEOs are not too stupid to realize their own descendants, children/grandchildren etc., will eventually suffer serious health repercussions due to the former’s reckless decisions, but the unlimited profit objective of the CEO nature is seemingly irresistible. One might depressingly recall the fox stung by the instinct-abiding scorpion while being carried across the river, leaving both to drown.
Pandemic Worsens, Resistance Will Follow
By: John Clarke
Two recent developments in the US seem to capture just how the destructive profit-driven irrationality of capitalism renders it incapable of effectively containing the present global pandemic. On July 10, the US recorded a staggering 70,000 new coronavirus cases in a single day, and Florida saw 11,433 cases, with 435 more people hospitalized. The next day, the reopening of “The Most Magical Place on Earth,” Disney World, began in that state. Admission tickets for the four theme parks are already sold out for the month of July. Meanwhile, across the country in Los Angeles, it is reported that the factories used to produce face masks for front-line workers, under the ‘LAProtects’ initiative, have become a major source of coronavirus infection. The low wage sweatshop conditions that the mainly migrant workforce have to endure have proven deadly. Three factories have been closed after three hundred contracted COVID-19 and four died.
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By: John Clarke
July 23, 2020
To read more: https://socialistproject.ca/2020/07/pandemic-worsens-resistance-will-follow/
Source ourworldindata.org.
After the Pandemic, Germany Is Poised to Come Out Ahead
Germany has won widespread praise for Chancellor Angela Merkel’s calm leadership in the face of Covid-19, but at The New York Times, Morgan Stanley’s Ruchir Sharma writes that the country will likely emerge as the “big winner” in the world’s post-Covid-19 economy, thanks not only to its public-health response to the virus, but to pre-pandemic fiscal health and a forward-looking, export-focused economy.
“While other countries worry that recent layoffs may become permanent, most German workers stayed on the payroll thanks to rapid expansion of the Kurzarbeit, a century-old government system that pays companies to retain employees on shortened hours through temporary crises. Germany was able to expand the Kurzarbeit—and much else in the way of social services—thanks to its famous frugality,” Sharma writes.
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“Because Germany went into the pandemic with a government surplus, it could support its locked-down economy with direct payments to families, tax cuts, business loans and other aid amounting to 55 percent of gross domestic product, or roughly four times more than the United States’s rescue package as a share of G.D.P. … As the pandemic accelerates the pace of digitalization and de-globalization and drives up the world’s debts, Germany stands out for its relative lack of weakness to those challenges, and for a government prepared to handle them.”
Published July 21st, 2020 on CNN: Fareed’s Global Briefing
Europe’s Recovery Deal: Hamilton Moment, or Poison Pill?
EU leaders have agreed on a Covid-19 economic-recovery package that includes collective borrowing to fund efforts in the hardest-hit countries, and it’s being universally hailed as a landmark. When the plan was first floated by France and Germany, some called it a “Hamiltonian moment”—a reference to Alexander Hamilton’s union-saving compromise to assume states’ Revolutionary War debts collectively, which began America’s federalized fiscal system. At the European Council on Foreign Relations, Jana Puglierin and Ulrike Esther Franke suggest Paris and Berlin, having overcome the EU’s longstanding obstacle of richer countries’ reluctance to bail out the bloc’s economic stragglers, might form a political–economic engine driving Europe toward coherence and geopolitical boldness.
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And yet, there are doubts. It’s not clear how the borrowed money will be paid back, and the package “contains a €312.5 billion pot of grants that are tied to new national recovery plans—and thus reforms,” Politico Europe’s David M. Herszenhorn, Lili Bayer, and Rym Momtaz note. In an op-ed for the paper, Eurasia Group Europe-practice head Mujtaba Rahman suggests that while the deal sets a new precedent for how Europe will deal with crises, these strings attached to the money will be dicey—and could sour intra-European relations if beneficiary countries see better-off neighbors as hectoring them to self-govern differently. That could fuel populism and Euroscepticism if things go badly, and Rahman warns that if they do, “today’s agreement would not contain a recipe for the EU’s success, but the seeds of its failure.”
Published July 21st, 2020 on CNN: Fareed’s Global Briefing
We aren’t hearing anything more about this, but that’s okay. It seems that a lot of researchers are producing a workable vaccine with astounding speed. Dr. Anthony Fauci predicts that by the end of 2020 there will be lots of doses — not enough for everyone at once, but a lot.
The Conversation: Sharing Data can Help Prevent Public Health Emergencies in Africa
Global collaboration and sharing data on public health emergencies is important to fight the spread of infectious diseases. If scientists and health workers can openly share their data across regions and organisations, countries can be better prepared and respond faster to disease outbreaks.
This was the case in with the 2014 Ebola outbreak in West Africa. Close to 100 scientists, clinicians, health workers and data analysts from around the world worked together to help contain the spread of the disease.
But there’s a lack of trust when it comes to sharing data in north-south collaborations. African researchers are suspicious that their northern partners could publish data without acknowledging the input from the less resourced southern institutions where the data was first generated. Until recently, the authorship of key scientific publications, based on collaborative work in Africa, was dominated by scientists from outside Africa.
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The Global Research Collaboration for Infectious Disease Preparedness, an international network of major research funding organisations, recently published a roadmap to data sharing. This may go some way to address the data sharing challenges. Members of the network are expected to encourage their grantees to be inclusive and publish their results in open access journals. The network includes major funders of research in Africa like the European Commission, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and Wellcome Trust.
The roadmap provides a guide on how funders can accelerate research data sharing by the scientists they fund. It recommends that research funding institutions make real-time, external data sharing a requirement. And that research needs to be part of a multi-disciplinary disease network to advance public health emergencies responses.
In addition, funding should focus on strengthening institutions’ capacity on a number of fronts. This includes data management, improving data policies, building trust and aligning tools for data sharing.
Allowing researchers to freely access data generated by global academic counterparts is critical for rapidly informing disease control strategies in public health emergencies.
Why share data
Mounting appropriate and timely responses to emerging and re-emerging infectious diseases requires global cooperation on data analysis across disciplines. Examples include Ebola, Lassa fever and Yellow fever.
During the 2014 Ebola outbreak in West Africa, field and laboratory data collected in real-time were shared between scientists from different countries. These data revealed how the Ebola virus was evolving and spreading in the region. The information was then used to contain the spread of the virus in Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone.
Ninety-six individual investigators, including clinicians and scientists, from 60 institutions in 18 countries worked together. They collected and analysed data by sequencing 1,610 Ebola virus genomes. The data informed policy decisions in West Africa because government ministers from Sierra Leone and Liberia were part of the investigators.
The work done in West Africa shows that global data sharing can work.
This north-south collaboration is the research partnership model that the European and Developing Countries Clinical Trials Partnership uses on the continent.
This is a partnership between the European Union and national institutions in Europe and sub-Saharan Africa. It was initially created in response to the global health crisis caused by HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria. Now it includes research and responses to neglected and emerging infections.
It currently supports several institutions that were involved in the West African study. As the regional director for Africa, I promote global collaborations that acknowledge inputs from Africa researchers and institutions.
Collaborations
Our north-south partnership is also making strides to improve the capacity for collaboration and data sharing.
The global research collaboration includes a number of members such as the African Academy of Sciences, the Academy of Scientific Research and Technology in Egypt and the South African Medical Research Council.
There are several initiatives under way.
For one, the African Academy of Sciences is in the early stages of building a Coalition for African Research and Innovation. This platform will foster collaboration on research and innovation in Africa. It will also address the under investment in scientific talent and research infrastructure.
Another example is the Pan African Clinical Trials Registry. This is hosted by the South Africa Medical Research Council. The registry provides access to contacts for researchers as well as trial sites. It also provides information on which organisation or institution funds various research projects. This data can be used to map clinical trial activity in several disease conditions relevant to the continent such as Ebola.
In 2017, for example, two public health emergencies networks and four regional networks of excellence were funded. This was to ensure that African countries are better prepared to prevent, respond to and minimise the impact of infectious disease outbreaks.
Building partnerships
Collaboration and data sharing has become a serious focus in the fight against public health emergencies.
Funding agencies, ethics and regulatory bodies in Africa, reviewers and grant recipients have been looking for ways to consolidate a efforts for collaboration and data sharing.
Among the issues that need to be addressed are big data, the way that databases can be managed and the implementation of systemic reviews. This is critical to prevent the next epidemic.
What the Ebola crisis in West Africa has shown us is that wide scale collaboration is helpful and works.
Social movements in times of pandemic: another world is needed
By Donatella della Porta
Faced with the glaring need for radical and complex transformation, social movements in times of crisis act differently from protests.
Times of pandemic bring big challenges for the activists of progressive social movements. They are not a time for street activism or politics in the squares. Freedoms are restricted, social distancing makes the typical forms of protest impossible to carry out. Mobilization is not only difficult in public places but also in our places of work, given the very strict limitation on the right to meet and the reduced opportunity for face-to-face encounters. The continuous emergency constrains our mental spaces, challenging our creativity. Individual and collective resources are focused on everyday survival. Hope, that stimulant for collective action, is difficult to sustain, while fear, that so discourages it, spreads. Crises might trigger selfish defensive choices, turning the other into an enemy. We depend on governmental efficiency and expert opinions.
The continuous emergency constrains our mental spaces, challenging our creativity.
Nevertheless, social movements often do emerge in moments of high emergency, of (more or less natural) calamities, and of strong repression of individual and collective freedoms. Wars have triggered waves of contention in the past. Not only is it the case that “states make wars and wars make states”, but portentous contestations have accompanied military conflicts – before, after, at times even during these. Such revolutions testify to the strength of engagement in moments of deep crisis.
Times of deep crisis can (even if not automatically) generate the invention of alternative forms of protest. The broad spread of new technologies allows for online protests – including, but not limited to, e-petitions that have multiplied in this period (ranging from the quest for Eurobonds to the request for a suspension of rents for students. Car marches have been called for in Israel. Workers have claimed more security through flashmobs, implemented by participants keeping a safe distance one from the other. In Finland, public transport drivers have refused to monitor tickets. In Italy or Spain, collective messages of contestation or solidarity are sent from balconies and windows. Through these innovative forms, protests puts pressure on those in government and control their actions.
Faced with the glaring need for radical and complex transformation, social movements also act in various ways that differ from protests. First of all, social movements create and recreate ties: they build upon existing networks but also, in action, they connect and multiply them. Faced by the manifest inadequacies of the state and, even more, of the market, social movement organizations form – as is happening in every country hit by the pandemic – into mutual support groups, promoting direct social action by helping those most in need. So, they produce resilience by responding to the need for solidarity.
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They make use of alternative specialist knowledge but they also add to this the practical knowledge arising from the direct experiences of citizens.
In this way, social movements can exploit the spaces for innovation that open up in moments of uncertainty. In the most dramatic way, the crisis demonstrates that change is needed, a radical change that breaks with the past, and a complex change that goes from politics to the economy, from society to culture. If in normal times, social movements grow with the opportunities for gradual transformation, in times of deep crisis movements are spread instead by the perception of a drastic and deep threat, contributing to cognitive openings. While everyday life changes drastically, spaces for reflection about a future that cannot be thought as in continuity with the past also open up.
Crisis also opens up opportunities for change by making evident the need for public responsibility and civic sense, for rules and solidarity. If crises have the immediate effect of concentrating power, up to and including its militarization, they however demonstrate the incapacity of governments to act merely through force. The need for sharing and widespread support in order to address the pandemic might bring with it the recognition of the richness of civil society mobilization. The presence of social movements might thereby provide a contrast with the risks taken by an authoritarian response to the crisis.
What is more, crises show the value of fundamental public goods and their complex management through institutional networks but also through the participation of the citizens, the workers, the users. They demonstrate that the management of the commons needs regulation and participation from below. In any mobilization during a pandemic, the value of an universal system of public health emerges as not only just, but also vital. If claims for health in the working places and the universal protection of health as a public good are traditionally the demands of trade unions and of the Left, the pandemic demonstrates the need to reaffirm these rights and expand them to include the least protected. In its global dimension, the pandemic triggers reflection on the need for global protection of the right to health protection, as often explained by civil society organizations such as Doctors without Borders or Emergency.
Crises demonstrate that the management of the commons needs regulation and participation from below.
Of course, all this does not happen automatically. These crises are also give occasion to the accumulation of profit by dispossession, for the experimentation of authoritarian governments, for social anomie. Emergency and shocks create rich occasions for speculators. But, if the crises increase competition for scarce resources, they also increase the perception of a shared destiny. Increasing inequalities, rather than levelling them, they also instil a deep sense of injustice. Bringing with it the singling out of specific political and social responsibilities. As in wars, the exacting of terrible sacrifices from the people fuels claims of rights and participation in decision making, As collective mobilization grows, also the hope for change ensues – for another world that is still possible and all the more needed.
Open Democracy, Mary 23, 2020
https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/can-europe-make-it/social-movements-times-pandemic-another-world-needed/
WHO offers a free course in Incident Management System
If Covid-19 has done anything good for the world, it would be by alerting millions of people to the importance of early detecting and early responding to a disaster emergency — especially the outbreak of a communicable disease, but also to other catastrophes such as fires, floods, and earthquakes.
And WHO has provided some opportunities for those of us who want to be trained as “front-line responders.” There is a free course available to enhance WHO’s Health Emergencies Programme (WHE) response capability. It lasts about three hours and is offered in English, French, and Portuguese. Here are the things you can learn from it:
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• Introduction • WHO Health Emergencies Programme (WHE) • WHO Core Commitments in Emergencies • WHO Guiding Principles in Emergencies • Knowledge check
Module 2 – Introduction to Emergency Management:
• Introduction • Defining Emergency Management (EM) • Background and Historical Challenges in Emergency ManagementEmergency management cycle • Emergency management Principles • Key Terminology • The Incident Command Systems (ICS) • Knowledge check
Module 3 – The WHO Emergency Response Framework (ERF 2.0):
• Introduction • The Incident Management System (IMS) o Development, Principles and Overview o What is IMS? o Why Universal Standards? o WHOs adoption of IMS • WHO’s Incident Management System o Critical Functions, Structure and key Roles o Leadership and the Incident Manager o Escalation principles / Scaling the Response o Emergency Operations Resourcing o Communication and Span of Control o Unified Management o WHO IMS Plans • The Emergency Operations Centre (EOC) o What is an EOC? o The role of the EOC in IMS o The role of the EOC in Emergencies • Knowledge check
Module 4 – Incident Management System (IMS) applied in WHO:
• Introduction • The Incident Management System (IMS) o Development, Principles and Overview o What is IMS? o Why Universal Standards? o WHOs adoption of IMS • WHO’s Incident Management System o Critical Functions, Structure and key Roles o Leadership and the Incident Manager o Escalation principles / Scaling the Response o Emergency Operations Resourcing o Communication and Span of Control o Unified Management o WHO IMS Plans • The Emergency Operations Centre (EOC) o What is an EOC? o The role of the EOC in IMS o The role of the EOC in Emergencies • Knowledge check
Additional resources:
1. Lunch seminar “What do people die of in emergencies and what can we do to reduce it?”
To enroll, here’s the link: https://openwho.org/courses/incident-management-system . You can get a certificate if you finish with a grade of 80 percent.
If you finish this course, there is a follow-on intermediate level course available too.
Interesting article! I had never previously thought about the intersections of nuclear disarmament and COVID.
How to fight Antimicrobial Resistance
1. Don’t take antibiotics unless you really need them (doctor prescription only!)
2. Finish your antibiotic pills! This is very important even when you feel the clinical symptoms are gone already. Because the insufficient dosage of antibiotic will make the bacteria develop their resistance.
3. Prevent infections! The easiest way is to wash your hands before eating!
Perhaps there’s a way for the international community to impose some sort of truce until COVID-19 is solved, or there is a suitable vaccine that can be delivered to everyone.
Antimicrobial Resistance in Livestock
Yes, this is something we should definitely follow. But what about the greater issue of use of antibiotics in chicken feed/ in animals! The food industry heavily uses antibiotics as a preventative measure to make sure that the animals in factories don’t get sick, and this heavily impacts antimicrobial resistance. We need systemic change!
Public Funding for Research!
Cameron, you should also mention the most important way of fighting anti-microbial resistance: Public Funding for Research and Development! Pharmaceutical companies don’t search for new antibiotics because it is not profitable. We have to get public funding for that, and to do so will require buudgeting legislation, which won’t happen unless there is a public demand for it. A social movement is the source of most real societal improvement. (And often of societal deterioration too.)
Your prediction was an under-estimate, Blanche. The US passed 500,000 deaths from Covid in February 2021.
This illustrates more clearly than anything I have ever read that there are potentially good and potentially horrible applications of all kinds of knowledge. The worst thing, though, is that it is probably impossible to set forth any rules or general principles to use in deciding whether a particular use should be accepted and encouraged or forbidden. Privacy itself is neither always good nor always bad. And indeed, once something bad has happened, sometimes there are good effects. And vice versa. Life is so complicated!
“Without Early Warning You Can’t Have Early Response”
By Grant Robertson
“Months before the COVID-19 outbreak, the federal government’s early warning system went silent, just as it was needed most. The change left Canada poorly prepared as the virus began to spread rapidly around the world.
On the morning of Dec. 31, as word of a troubling new outbreak in China began to reverberate around the world, in news reports and on social media, a group of analysts inside the federal government and their bosses were caught completely off guard.
The virus had been festering in China for weeks, possibly months, but the Public Health Agency of Canada appeared to know nothing about it – which was unusual because the government had a team of highly specialized doctors and epidemiologists whose job was to scour the world for advance warning of major health threats. And their track record was impressive.
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Some of the earliest signs of past international outbreaks, including H1N1, MERS and Ebola, were detected by this Canadian early warning system, which helped countries around the world prepare.
Known as the Global Public Health Intelligence Network, or GPHIN, the unit was among Canada’s contributions to the World Health Organization, and it operated as a kind of medical Amber Alert system. Its job was to gather intelligence and spot pandemics early, before they began, giving the government and other countries a head start to respond and – hopefully – prevent a catastrophe. And the results often spoke for themselves.
Russia once accused Canada of spying, after GPHIN analysts determined that a rash of strange illnesses in Chechnya were the result of a chemical release the Kremlin tried to keep quiet. Impressed by GPHIN’s data-mining capabilities, Google offered to buy it from the federal government in 2008. And two years ago, the WHO praised the operation as “the foundation” of a global pandemic early warning system.
So, when it came to the outbreak in Wuhan, the Canadian government had a team of experts capable of spotting the hidden signs of a problem, even at its most nascent stages.
But last year, a key part of that function was effectively switched off.
In May, 2019, less than seven months before COVID-19 would begin wreaking havoc on the world, Canada’s pandemic alert system effectively went dark.
Amid shifting priorities inside Public Health, GPHIN’s analysts were assigned other tasks within the department, which pulled them away from their international surveillance duties.
With no pandemic scares in recent memory, the government felt GPHIN was too internationally focused, and therefore not a good use of funding. The doctors and epidemiologists were told to focus on domestic matters that were deemed a higher priority.
The analysts’ capacity to issue alerts about international health threats was halted. All such warnings now required approval from senior government officials. Soon, with no green light to sound an alarm, those alerts stopped altogether.
So, on May 24 last year, after issuing an international warning of an unexplained outbreak in Uganda that left two people dead, the system went silent.
And in the months leading up to the emergence of COVID-19, as one of the biggest pandemics in a century lurked, Canada’s early warning system was no longer watching closely.
When the novel coronavirus finally emerged on the international radar, amid evidence the Chinese government had been withholding information about the severity of the outbreak, Canada was conspicuously unaware and ultimately ill-prepared.
But according to current and former staff, it was just one of several problems brewing inside Public Health when the virus struck. Experienced scientists say their voices were no longer being heard within the bureaucracy as department priorities changed, while critical information gathered in the first few weeks of the outbreak never made it up the chain of command in Ottawa.
The Globe and Mail obtained 10 years of internal GPHIN records showing how abruptly Canada’s pandemic alert system went silent last spring.
Between 2009 and 2019, the team of roughly 12 doctors and epidemiologists, fluent in multiple languages, were a prolific operation. During that span, GPHIN issued 1,587 international alerts about potential outbreak threats around the world, from South America to Siberia.
Those alerts were sent to top officials in the Canadian government and throughout the international medical community, including the WHO. Countries across Europe, Latin America, Asia and Africa also relied on the system.
On average, GPHIN issued more than a dozen international alerts a month, according to the records. But its purpose wasn’t to cry wolf. Only special situations that required monitoring, closer inspection or frank discussions with a foreign government were flagged.
GPHIN’s role was reconnaissance – detect an outbreak early so that the government could prepare. Could the virus be contained before it got to Canada? Should hospitals brace for a crisis? Was there enough personal protective equipment on hand? Should surveillance at airports be increased, flights stopped, or borders closed?
This need for early detection sprang from a climate of distrust in the 1990s, when it was believed some countries were increasingly reluctant to disclose major health problems, fearing economic or reputational damage. This left everyone at a disadvantage.
For Canada, the wake-up call came in 1994 when a sudden outbreak of pneumonic plague in Surat, India, sparked panic. Official information was sparse, but rumours promulgated faster. As citizens fled the city of millions, many on foot, others boarded planes.
Public Health officials in Ottawa were soon alerted to an urgent problem: Staff at Toronto’s Pearson International Airport, fearing exposure to the plague, threatened to walk off the job if a plane arriving from India was allowed to land. The government scrambled to put quarantine measures in place.
“We were caught flat-footed,” said Ronald St. John, who headed up the federal Centre for Emergency Preparedness at the time. The panic demonstrated the need for advance warning and better planning.
“We said, we’ve got to have early alerts. So how do we get early alerts?”
Waiting for official word from governments was often slow – and unreliable. Dr. St. John and his team of epidemiologists didn’t want to wait. They began building computer systems that could scan the internet – still in its infancy back then – at lightning speed, aggregating local news, health data, discussion boards, independent blogs and whatever else they could find. They looked for anything unusual, which would then be investigated by trained doctors who were experts in spotting diseases.
It was a mix of science and detective work. A report of dead birds in one country, or a sudden outbreak of flu symptoms at the wrong time of year in another, could be clues to something worse – what the analysts call indirect signals.
Find those signals early enough, and you can contain the outbreak before it becomes a global pandemic.
“We wanted to detect an event, we didn’t want a full epidemiological analysis,” Dr. St. John said. “We just wanted to know if there was an outbreak.”
Each day, GPHIN’s algorithms sifted through more than 7,000 data points from around the world, from news reports in a multitude of languages to arcane medical data, searching for unusual patterns. Those were whittled down to five or 10 cases a day the analysts focused on.
To the untrained eye, a sudden jump in the price of hog futures in one country might not mean much. But to the analysts, it could point to an undisclosed swine flu outbreak.
The combination of machine learning and human analysis proved surprisingly effective. In 1998, GPHIN analysts noticed a pharmaceutical company in China was reporting unprecedented sales of antiviral drugs in one particular region, for no apparent reason. When they investigated further, they found China was grappling with a deadly outbreak it hadn’t told the world about – a virus that would soon be known as SARS.
At that time, though, GPHIN was still largely an experiment. When a later outbreak of SARS spread to Canada in 2003, killing 44 people, GPHIN provided early intelligence, but it wasn’t enough to avert a crisis. After that disaster, which was complicated by a lack of co-operation from China, the unit was enshrined inside the newly minted Public Health Agency and given more clout.
The idea was to arm Canada, the world and the WHO with intelligence.
“It allowed them to go back to a country and say, by the way, we know you have this outbreak,” Dr. St. John said. “And they could squeeze them into telling about it, so that the WHO could do something.”
By the mid-2000s, the unit was sending out several hundred alerts a year, flagging potential threats it detected.
When Iran was hit with a potentially catastrophic bird flu outbreak in 2005, GPHIN analysts discovered notices were being posted in the country telling locals to call a special number if they found a dead bird, though no information was provided as to why. Soon GPHIN was tracking reports of symptoms and filing alerts, which got the world’s attention. It would be six months before the Iranian government confirmed the outbreak was real.
In 2009, analysts alerted the WHO to an H1N1 swine flu pandemic in Mexico, after studying reports of unusual illnesses near Veracruz, where stores were suddenly selling out of bleach. It was only after the WHO contacted the Mexican Ministry of Health that the problem was publicly acknowledged.
The alerts worked like a smoke detector ensuring governments were at least aware of potentially urgent situations. Not every signal became a crisis, but the system never seemed to miss a big one. It was soon endorsed by the WHO as a crucial service – the “cornerstone” of Canada’s pandemic response capability, and “the foundation” of global early warning, where signals are “rapidly acted upon” and “trigger a cascade of actions” by governments, the organization said.
It was high praise.
“We showed the value of early detection,” said Abla Mawudeku, who headed up GPHIN for more than a decade and helped build it with Dr. St. John.
“Its purpose was to give guidance to decision makers.”
But as budgets shrank and government priorities shifted, GPHIN began to change. Soon, successive Canadian governments had other ideas for how it should function.
In late 2018, analysts at GPHIN were called to a meeting where the department unveiled new plans for how the unit would operate.
GPHIN combed the world for signs of trouble, but there hadn’t been a serious pandemic in ages. Though its budget was a relatively small $2.8-million, this international focus always put it at risk for cuts.
The problem, say several past and present employees who spoke to The Globe, is that GPHIN was populated by scientists and doctors, yet largely misunderstood by government. Senior bureaucrats brought in from other departments believed its resources could be put to better use working on domestic projects, rather than far-flung threats that may never materialize.
“They would say, ‘You need to focus on Canada,’” Ms. Mawudeku said. “But the threats come from outside Canada.”
In the fall of 2018, GPHIN’s international duties were scaled back. Analysts were no longer allowed to issue alerts without first obtaining approval from senior officials, who were most often not epidemiologists.
One employee who recently left Public Health for a job outside government said that created problems because those officials often had little understanding of the scientific complexities of outbreak surveillance. This was echoed by three other internal sources who spoke with The Globe.
“All these systems were in place for early warning,” said the former employee, who requested anonymity because they were not authorized to speak about GPHIN. “We would go to them with information and they wouldn’t understand it.”
This new requirement caused excruciating delays. Though GPHIN had been capable of flashing alerts to agencies around the world in as little as 15 minutes, it now took several days in some cases to get approval.
There was no point to an early warning system that couldn’t move fast – containment and mitigation were all about speed. Soon the alerts stopped altogether.
When the last alert was issued on May 24 last year, detailing the strange, deadly outbreak in Uganda, it took nearly nine hours for senior officials to approve it.
Meanwhile, analysts were given other tasks, working on domestic matters deemed more valuable to the government’s own initiatives. These included tracking the effects of vaping and the spread of syphilis in remote communities. Both were, arguably, worthy areas of study on their own. But the cost was high.
“Without early warning you can’t have early response. That’s where the alerts come in,” a GPHIN employee said.
Ms. Mawudeku said the new work was not what GPHIN was intended to do. “That is not early detection,” she said.
This caused disagreements inside Public Health. But friction between some of the scientists inside the department and senior officials had been building for some time.
After the 2003 SARS outbreak, the Public Health Agency was meant to be an independent medical voice inside government in the event of another deadly pandemic. But several rounds of restructuring over the years served to subjugate the role of scientists, sources told The Globe.
The Conservatives, under Prime Minister Stephen Harper, began to reshape Public Health in 2014, reducing the clout of the Chief Public Health Officer and restricting control over staffing and budgets. Senior officials were brought in from other departments, such as the Treasury Board and Border Services, to run Public Health. New layers of management were installed above the CPHO and throughout the department.
The move was billed as a way to ease the workload for Canada’s top doctor. But it amounted to a demotion of scientific voices within the department and, arguably, a way to escalate political influence in the decision-making process.
When the changes were announced, the Canadian Public Health Association, which represents public health professionals, feared the new structure would imperil the department’s ability to respond effectively in a crisis. The Liberals called the restructuring “bad news” and warned it would lead to the experts inside Public Health being stripped of their independence, allowing the government to exert control over decisions.
However, when the Liberals took power in 2015, rather than reverse the changes they once opposed, the Trudeau government kept them.
The Globe and Mail spoke with several past and present Public Health employees, some who can’t be named because they are not authorized to speak and fear punishment for doing so, who said these changes had a profound impact.
Michael Garner, an epidemiologist who spent 13 years at Public Health and was a senior science adviser before leaving in September, said scientists inside the department, including several of his colleagues still there, grew increasingly frustrated by their inability to communicate urgent public health matters to senior officials who came from elsewhere in the government.
“There’s a massive lack of understanding by the people working in the agency about the basics of health. What you present up the chain has to be dumbed down,” Mr. Garner said.
“But some of these things are complicated. Having to simplify it down just doesn’t work. As we understand from the story of the coronavirus – it’s super complicated.”
Countries that have fared better in this pandemic, including Korea, New Zealand, Thailand and Germany, moved swiftly and decisively in the earliest days of the virus.
“How do you convince someone that acting to prevent something is worth it?” Mr. Garner said. “It’s really hard, and it’s even harder when you’re dealing with people who aren’t scientists and really just want things to remain calm.”
Another former employee, who could not be named because he still works in Ottawa and fears punishment for speaking publicly, corroborated Mr. Garner’s account.
“What kind of happened over the last four or five years is PHAC became very bureaucratic,” the employee said. “So instead of these PhDs and epidemiologists who knew what was going on, you would go to managers with information and they wouldn’t necessarily understand it.”
That disconnect led to fundamental changes at GPHIN. With the alert system now curtailed, its international surveillance capacity has also suffered greatly, the employee said.
It has been difficult to get an answer from the government as to why GPHIN has effectively gone silent. When asked by The Globe why it stopped issuing international alerts for disease outbreaks and other public health threats, Public Health at first denied they had stopped.
“GPHIN has not ceased issuing alerts,” Public Health said in an emailed statement.
It was only when The Globe informed the government that it had obtained extensive records showing no international alerts have been sent in more than a year – including immediately before and during a major pandemic – that the government changed its message.
No alerts had been issued, a Public Health spokeswoman acknowledged, but that didn’t mean alerts had stopped. They just weren’t being made any more.
“The approval level for an alert from the Global Public Health Intelligence Network was raised from the analyst level to senior management,” Public Health said in an e-mail statement.
This was done “to ensure appropriate awareness of, and response to, any emerging issue.”
But rather than improve the system, it merely shuttered it.
Final authorization for alerts now rests with the vice-president of the Health Security Infrastructure Branch, Sally Thornton. The Globe requested an interview with Ms. Thornton, who came to the department from positions at the Treasury Board and Privy Council and has a background in business and law, to explain the reasoning for the move.
The request was declined twice.
In a statement, Public Health said GPHIN’s newfound domestic focus is an example of “subject-specific surveillance” but that international detection was still its “primary role.”
Even though the department’s own records show that no alerts have been issued since last spring, despite more than 1,500 being made over the past decade, Public Health said GPHIN’s role “remains unchanged.”
Yet, staff inside the department said international surveillance is no longer the priority.
“By the time Wuhan arrived,” said one analyst, who is not cleared to speak publicly, “it was understood surveillance was to focus on Canada.”
‘WE KNEW WE WERE IN TROUBLE’
Scientists now believe China was keeping the outbreak quiet for several weeks, possibly longer, by the time word leaked to the international community.
The first indication the rest of the world had of a problem came on the night of Dec. 30.
Just after 8:00 p.m. eastern time that evening, Marjorie Pollack, a veteran epidemiologist who helps run ProMed, a New York-based health network, was sitting down to watch a movie with her husband when an e-mail lit up her phone. It was from a contact in Taiwan.
“This is being passed around the internet here,” the man said. “Not sure if you have people there who might know more.”
Attached was a picture of a bulletin posted inside a hospital in Wuhan, warning doctors there of a rapidly spreading “Pneumonia of unknown cause.” The photo had begun circulating on Chinese social media a few hours earlier.
Dr. Pollack’s stomach churned. Unknown respiratory illnesses weren’t typical. Those were trigger words.
“People say you can’t rely on gut. Only the gut has been there before,” Dr. Pollack said. “I was around for SARS, and this smelled like SARS.”
She scanned her contacts in the early-detection world. GPHIN, the Canadian surveillance operation that had a strong reputation globally – and often fed data into ProMed – was reporting nothing. That was odd. But there was no time to dwell on it.
Dr. Pollack began reaching out to contacts in Asia, trying to confirm the warning, which was now finding its way into news reports in China. That evening, just before midnight, ProMed and a blog called Flu Tracker – which does similar work, gathering mostly unverified crowd-sourced information – delivered the first glimpse to the West of what would soon become the COVID-19 pandemic.
Back in Ottawa that night, GPHIN’s offices – the victim of shifting priorities – sat mostly idle. Any indirect signals that might have revealed the outbreak at its most embryonic stage before then had been missed.
The next morning, 80,000 doctors who subscribe to ProMed, many in Canada, awoke to news of the threat. The Chinese government, confronted with photos of bulletins posted at its own hospitals, soon confirmed the outbreak to the WHO – though no one outside China knew for sure how long the virus had been festering.
“Did we know we were dealing with a pandemic? No,” Dr. Pollack said. “But we knew we were in trouble.”
If other countries were caught flat-footed that night, Canada was further behind. When GPHIN analysts arrived at work on Dec. 31, they didn’t have approval to begin issuing alerts for whatever intelligence they could gather on the fast-moving situation.
This included alerts that would go to top decision makers in the federal government, the provinces, health regions across the country, and to nations and organizations around the world that could be spurred into action by new information.
During other potentially deadly outbreaks that never reached COVID-19 levels, GPHIN rapidly issued dozens of such alerts informing the government and the WHO of the latest intelligence on how the disease was spreading, how hospitals and cities were affected, and who was at risk. Urgency was the key.
But as the hours turned into days, GPHIN was silent.
This silence appears to contravene the federal government’s own stated procedures. The Globe obtained a copy of Public Health’s internal decision tree, which governs when GPHIN is required to start tracking and alerting significant developments involving potential health threats – both for Canadian citizens and under its commitment to International Health Regulations.
The decision tree focuses on key questions designed to assess risk: Is the public health impact of the event serious? Is it highly contagious? Is it located in an area with high population density? Is the event unusual or unexpected? Is there a significant risk of international spread?
If at least two or three of those answers are yes, GPHIN is required to act.
Further, the document states that outbreaks involving “SARS” or “human influenza caused by a new subtype” should prompt continuing international alerts. Yet, GPHIN did not send any.
Surveillance that uncovers new developments – including revelations that health care workers are getting sick, or if asymptomatic transmission becomes evident – also require further investigation and alerts. But GPHIN’s system stayed quiet.
The early signals that would have been percolating in Wuhan were exactly the kinds of clues GPHIN was designed to detect and magnify.
But Dr. Pollack at ProMed wasn’t the only one confused as to where Canada’s early warning system went in a crisis.
Reached at his home near Ottawa, where he is now retired, Dr. St. John – founder of the system – said he was also puzzled.
“I wondered where GPHIN was,” he said.
ITEMS WERE REMOVED FROM REPORTS
Without the ability to sound the alarm internationally, one of GPHIN’s key roles was to channel intelligence within the federal government, so that policy makers could speed up their decision making.
In early January, with dire news of the outbreak starting to emanate from China, GPHIN analysts began preparing daily reports on the Wuhan situation.
Using whatever information they could glean from Chinese media sources, internet chatter throughout Asia, testimonials from doctors on the ground and data on case numbers, GPHIN began producing a daily sketch of the evolving crisis.
The situation in Wuhan was growing dangerously complex. Though Beijing was telling the world there was no reason to halt flights from China, close airports, tighten borders or curtail economic activity, the government there had already started shutting down cities and restricting travel. By all accounts, the situation was worse than Beijing was letting on.
But as GPHIN analysts filed their internal reports, they began to face pushback within the department. They were told to focus their efforts on official statements, such as data from the Chinese government and the WHO. Other sources of intelligence were just “rumours,” one analyst was told. “They wanted the report restricted to only official information.”
This created a weakness in trying to assess the situation accurately, current and former employees say.
Later, after receiving pushback that their reports were becoming too detailed and contained too much unofficial data, the analysts realized not all of their research was making it up the chain of command inside the department.
At a meeting of senior officials in the first few weeks of the outbreak, a Public Health director was asked why GPHIN’s internal reports had missed crucial developments that were now being widely reported in news around the world: that human-to-human transmission of the virus had been detected.
Confronted about the omission, the analysts were confused. That information had in fact been discussed in earlier reports, before it was widely known – and before the documents were sent up the chain.
“Items on Wuhan and transmission were mentioned,” said the employee. But those items “were removed,” the person said.
At that moment, the analysts couldn’t be sure what information they were gathering was being conveyed up through the department.
Asked why such material would be removed from the analysts’ reports, Public Health would not agree to an interview, but responded in a statement: “The premise of the question is not clear; senior management at PHAC have been fully engaged and briefed on the issue since the first report of an undiagnosed pneumonia in Wuhan emerged on December 31, 2019.”
However, such signals were exactly the kind of information GPHIN was created to detect, so that the government could understand the urgency, and move quickly.
“A week or even a few days makes a huge difference,” one GPHIN employee said. “Our basic reason for existing was to get information to the decision makers so that this wouldn’t happen.”
WE WEREN’T PAYING ATTENTION
Throughout January, February and into March, the government believed the outbreak posed little risk to Canada.
Even as disturbing signals began to emerge from China, and soon Italy, Ottawa’s position did not waver.
On Jan. 15, the Public Health Agency produced a document known as a Situation Report that stated the risk the virus posed to Canada was “Low.”
The SitReps, as they are known, are internal documents distributed by the Centre for Emergency Preparedness and Response, providing a snapshot of an evolving event and an assessment of its urgency. The reports draw input from a variety of federal sources, GPHIN among them.
The government’s risk assessments for COVID-19 were based on several factors, including the likelihood of the virus spreading internationally, and whether certain types of transmission were known to be occurring – such as person-to-person and asymptomatic spread.
However, despite the government’s determination that the risk to Canada was low, the Jan. 15 report contained a key detail that, perhaps, should have raised more concern than it did: The wife of a man working at the Wuhan market where the outbreak is believed to have originated had fallen ill, even though she had no exposure to the market. “Potential person-to-person transmission has been identified,” the SitRep said.
But several days later, Health Minister Patty Hajdu was given speaking notes that downplayed those same risks. Canadians were told to wash their hands often, but wearing masks was not necessary. “Based on the information that we have,” the notes said, under the title “Minister’s Messages,” there was “no clear evidence that this virus is easily transmitted between people. However, it is possible there may be limited human-to-human spread.”
Inside the department, the analysts and other scientists at Public Health were growing frustrated with a bureaucracy that didn’t see the value in interpreting the troubling signals coming from China.
“The Agency thought it was China’s problem and that, because they had [dealt with] SARS, they were ready,” the GPHIN analyst said.
By late January, the signals were growing louder. Chinese health workers were falling ill; crews were rushing to build an emergency hospital; high-level political meetings were abruptly cancelled; and the mayor of Wuhan admitted the government dragged its feet on releasing data about the outbreak. Talk of overflowing hospitals and mounting deaths grew louder online.
These were hints of an unusual problem. Yet with the situation evolving rapidly, Canada revisited its risk assessment in a Jan. 24 Situation Report and said the threat “remains low.”
That risk assessment grew even more conspicuous just four days later, on Jan. 28, when the WHO changed course and declared the risk to the world was “High,” urging countries to prepare.
But Canada didn’t budge. Two days later, on Jan. 30, Canada said the risk “remains low.”
Given his experience, Mr. Garner calls it “peculiar” that Canada didn’t elevate its concern level at that point. “They would have known that the WHO had raised it,” he said.
However, a spokeswoman for Public Health said Canada didn’t have significant levels of COVID-19 at that time, so there was no need to escalate the concern level – despite the fact that the virus was already spreading rapidly around the world.
“The public health risk assessment reported was based on the risk of COVID-19 within Canada at that time,” the spokeswoman said. “There was no evidence that COVID-19 was circulating within the population.”
A month later, the government remained confident. On Feb. 26, Deputy Chief Public Health Officer Howard Njoo told the House of Commons Health Committee the situation was under control. “We have contained the virus,” he said, noting there were just a dozen cases in Canada.
Yet clues the outbreak was spreading aggressively were there. By March, the WHO reported 40 per cent of cases tracked outside China “do not have a known site of transmission,” meaning the victims had no explanation as to how they contracted the virus.
On March 11, with cases in 114 countries, the WHO formally declared the COVID-19 outbreak a pandemic. Even this did not immediately cause Canada to rethink its position.
It wouldn’t be until March 16 – five days later – that Canada finally decided to raise its own risk assessment for Canada from “Low” to “High,” and urged Canadians to begin social distancing.
The catalyst for that decision, Public Health told The Globe in a statement, was evidence of human-to-human transmission in Canada. “The appearance of community spread of COVID-19 within the Canadian population prompted an increase in the level of risk,” the statement said.
But that was something that had been signalled for months in the government’s own intelligence reports – at least as far back as the Jan. 15 Situation Report.
Now, more drastic measures were needed. The country was going into lockdown. Businesses would shutter, the economy would grind to a halt, jobs would be lost and long-term care homes would be overrun. Thousands of people would die.
“The time has come for all Canadians to do what’s necessary to help us get through this pandemic,” Public Health Agency president Tina Namiesniowski told the House of Commons health committee on March 31.
But in the months prior, international signals were disregarded or missed, and there was no such urgency.
“The thing that leaps out at me is that I don’t see anyone within government raising serious alarm bells,” said Wesley Wark, an adjunct professor at the University of Ottawa who is a specialist in international affairs and intelligence gathering. “The real failure is that we weren’t paying enough attention to what was actually going on in China.
“This is where GPHIN was meant to perform such an important role, as the collector and filter for decision making.”
CONSEQUENCES
As much of the world beyond China popped Champagne on New Year’s Eve, blissfully unaware of what lay ahead in 2020, Dr. Pollack knew the e-mail from Taiwan was likely a harbinger of a crisis to come.
“I could have been wrong,” she said. “I wish I was.”
Early detection is as much an art as it is a science. The disease is hiding, but the signals are detectable. Acting quickly can have a big impact on the outcome.
With COVID-19, the signals began small, but grew louder.
“We all had enough warning,” she said. “We saw what happened in China, in Italy,”
Dr. St. John agrees. “The signal was there,” he said.
However, few people outside GPHIN knew Canada’s early warning alert system had effectively stopped working, just when it was needed most.
When Ms. Thornton, the vice-president in charge of the alerts, appeared before a House of Commons committee in May to face questions about Canada’s handling of the pandemic, she was asked how the government had tracked the spread of the virus.
Ms. Thornton referenced GPHIN and the work it did. Though she made no mention that GPHIN had not issued a single alert in the previous 12 months.
Nor did she mention that analysts had been assigned to other work, or that GPHIN had not sounded any further alarms on COVID-19 developments after the outbreak became known – even though the department’s own guidelines required as much.
As far as the committee knew, Canada’s surveillance system had been operating as it always had.
It’s not easy to know the consequences of such decisions, but Mr. Garner, the former senior science adviser at Public Health, says he believes Canada’s early response to the outbreak – which has been criticized for being slow and disorganized – was a product of the many changes he saw made to the department.
Those changes helped move Public Health’s focus away from science, he said, which slowed down its ability to react effectively – and with maximum urgency.
“All of these things have tragically come home to roost,” Mr. Garner said.
“Not to be overdramatic, but Canadians have died because of this.”
ARTICLE TITLE: ‘Without early warning you can’t have early response’: How Canada’s world-class pandemic alert system failed
By: Grant Robertson
Published: July 25th, 2020
https://www.theglobeandmail.com/canada/article-without-early-warning-you-cant-have-early-response-how-canadas/
Canada’s Healthcare System isn’t so Great!
Especially during the pandemic crisis, I’ve heard too many platitudinous praises of Canada’s supposed universality of healthcare.
I, one who champions truly comprehensive health-services coverage, had tried accessing, for example, essential therapy coverage in our public system; within, however, there were/are important health treatments that are either universally non-existent or, more likely, universally inaccessible, except to those with relatively high incomes and/or generous employer health insurance coverage.
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Furthermore, Canada is the only universal-health-coverage country (theoretically, anyway) that doesn’t also cover medication. The bitter irony is, many low-income outpatients cannot afford to fill their prescriptions and resultantly end up back in the hospital system, thus burdening the system far more than if the outpatients’ generic-brand medication was also covered. This lesson was learned and implemented by enlightened European nations with genuinely universal all-inclusive health care systems that also cover necessary medication.
Why Canada has to date steadfastly refused to similarly do so, I know not.
But I do know that the only two health professions’ appointments for which I’m fully covered by the public health plan are the readily pharmaceutical-prescribing psychiatry and general practitioner health professions. Such non-Big-Pharma-benefiting health specialists as dentists, counsellors, therapists and naturopaths (etcetera) are not covered.
It’s interesting how protecting the environment actually helps the human race as well…if only we had figured this out sooner. It seems other cultures did, like Indigenous communities.
An Old TB Vaccine Finds New Life in Coronavirus Trials
By Anthony King, May 4, 2020
Studies are underway to test whether giving a shot of BCG vaccine could protect doctors and nurses against COVID-19.
One of the oldest vaccines could protect us against our newest infectious disease, COVID-19. The vaccine has been given to babies to protect them against tuberculosis for almost a century, but has been shown to shield them from other infections too, prompting scientists to investigate whether it can protect against the coronavirus.
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This Bacille Calmette-Guérin (BCG) vaccine, named after two French microbiologists, consists of a live weakened strain of Mycobacterium bovis, a cousin of M. tuberculosis, the bacterium that causes tuberculosis. BCG has been given to more than 4 billion individuals, making it the most widely administered vaccine globally.
Because BCG protects babies against some viral infections in addition to TB, researchers decided to compare data from countries with and without mandatory BCG vaccination to see if immunization policies are linked to the number or severity of COVID-19 infections. A handful of preprint publications in the last two months noted that countries with an ongoing BCG vaccination program are experiencing lower death rates from COVID-19 than those without.
One study, for instance, found that mandatory BCG was associated with a significantly slower climb in both confirmed cases and deaths during the first 30-day period of an outbreak. Another modeled mortality in two dozen countries and reported that those without universal BCG vaccination, such as Italy, the US, and the Netherlands, were more severely affected by the pandemic than those with universal vaccination.
A downside with the preprints is that they show a statistical correlation, not cause and effect. “There are many sources of bias inherent in these cross-country comparisons,” warns Zoë McLaren, a professor of public health at the University of Maryland. For example, she says, the types of countries implementing the BCG vaccine may be more likely to also take proactive measures to protect their people against COVID-19, such as “shelter in place” orders. McLaren says she can think of almost 20 sources of bias in these studies. In another example, those who get a BCG vaccine may be more likely to have had a better start in life, putting them on a healthier trajectory. The studies cannot account for all confounding factors.
Epidemiologist Christine Stabell Benn of the University of Southern Denmark has studied BCG vaccine for the last two decades and reported that it reduces overall childhood mortality from infectious diseases. She warns against reading too much into the preprint papers. “This is the weakest kind of evidence that we have in our evidence pyramid,” she says. “It just links prevalence of one thing with the prevalence of another.”
But rather than toss out the idea of BCG’s link to fewer COVID cases or deaths, she says there’s good reason to consider it seriously. She has more direct evidence that BCG vaccination can ready our immune system for viral infections. And a number of clinical trials have now begun to investigate whether a BCG shot given to those most at risk of contracting the infection can protect them from the disease.
Evidence that BCG protects against other infections
Benn’s work is among accumulating evidence, as detailed in a recent review paper, that childhood BCG vaccination protects against other diseases, so-called off target effects. Much of the evidence to support the new clinical studies is based on trials by her group and on work by Mihai Netea of Radboud University Medical Centre in the Netherlands, who came up with a mechanistic explanation as to why BCG—designed to thwart a bacterial infection—could boost immune responses to viruses.
A study in 2000 led by Benn’s spouse and long-time collaborator Peter Aaby at the Bandim Health Project reported a significant reduction in mortality that was far greater than could be explained by preventing tuberculosis in infants who received BCG in Guinea-Bissau. And a 2005 study found a reduction in lower respiratory tract infections in BCG-vaccinated infants in the same country. In later studies, including one published in 2017, Benn and Aaby randomized thousands of low–birth weight children in this west African country to receive BCG right at birth or to be vaccinated at six weeks of age, which is the usual practice there. “There was a one-third reduction in neonatal mortality in those receiving BCG [earlier]” Benn says. The benefits mostly came from reduced rates of respiratory disease and septicemia in the babies, she adds.
In Guinea-Bissau, the researchers also compared children who developed a scar after vaccination with those who received the vaccine but did not develop a scar. The scar signals an appropriate immune response to the vaccine. In 2003, Aaby and colleagues reported significantly lower mortality in children with a vaccine scar. In a subsequent meta-analysis of similar studies, they suggested that the effect of revaccinating scar-negative children should be considered.
“We saw more than 40 percent reduction in overall mortality among those who had a scar, versus those who didn’t have a scar,” says Benn.
Benn says she is hopeful that BCG might offer some benefits against severe COVID-19. She gave herself a booster shot a few weeks back. “These non-specific effects [from BCG] are strongest when we look at respiratory infection outcomes,” says Benn.
When Benn and Aaby reported that BCG reduces infectious disease rates more than a decade ago, this was dismissed as biologically implausible at the time, she recalls. Vaccines induce long-lived memory B cells, which tweak their own genes to tailor-make antibodies against a specific microbe. These B cells are then kept in reserve in bone marrow. They quickly proliferate if the host again encounters the pathogen, giving long-lived immunity. B cells do not explain why a vaccine would allow someone to respond better to an unrelated microbe.
Netea proposed in 2012 that BCG works by putting the “innate” arm of the immune system, such as macrophages, on a higher alert status, a phenomenon termed “trained immunity.” The task of macrophages is to identify, engulf, and destroy foreign entities. They can also signal for reinforcements using cytokines. It was assumed that these guards did not remember particular pathogens, but stand as a blunt frontline defense. Twenty years ago, this innate system was viewed by most as crude and non-specific, says immunologist Luke O’Neill of Trinity College Dublin. “Then there was a Copernican revolution in immunology. Suddenly, it was realized how important the innate side was.”
See “Thanks for the Memories”
Nobel prizes went in 2011 to scientists who discovered innate receptors as gatekeepers of the immune system. Their research had kindled greater research interest in innate immune cells. Netea subsequently proposed that BCG primes frontline immune cells through epigenetic changes and metabolic rewiring. This is what allows them not to be placed on higher alert.
Priming the innate immune system matters for vaccines and for future infections. “If you vaccinate first with BCG and then give an influenza vaccine, the influenza vaccine works better,” says Netea. He reported this in 2015 in a randomized, placebo-controlled study of a vaccine against the 2009 pandemic strain. The experiment involved 40 men. Benn will this autumn test whether BCG administration 14 days prior to a seasonal flu vaccine could elicit a better response in those over 65.
To get a sense of how BCG might protect against a future pathogen, Netea infected healthy human volunteers with attenuated yellow fever virus in a randomized, placebo-controlled trial. Subjects who had been BCG vaccinated one month prior to the exposure showed significantly lower amounts of circulating yellow fever virus than those injected with placebo instead. The study, published last year, concluded that BCG induced epigenetic reprogramming of human monocytes and led to a more robust response against yellow fever virus.
After BCG administration, “there is more production of pro-inflammatory cytokines. They recruit immune cells easier to the site of infection, and those cells are better at killing and eliminating the virus,” says Netea.
According to Netea’s hypothesis, BCG could prep macrophages in a way that results in a locally stronger cytokine response directed against SARS-CoV-2, focused at the site of infection. “This would prevent inefficient systemic response later, which can harm the patient,” he explains, the so-called cytokine storm. Macrophages call to arms B and T cells, which would mean that those primed with BCG should be more efficient at killing off a SARS-CoV-2 infection.
Innate immune priming after BCG is probably optimal for two or three years, says Netea, an estimate based on epidemiological data in children. In his view, “the fact that somebody has been vaccinated 50 or 60 years ago is probably non-protective.” This runs counter to the links in epidemiological data suggesting that BCG is now assisting adults in responding to COVID-19. McLaren says even the vaccine’s protection against TB probably lasts just two decades. O’Neill too is skeptical about innate priming lasting this long. He says he wonders if countries with high childhood BCG vaccination rates, such as Japan, may protect elderly people indirectly from COVID-19, because vaccinated kids don’t spread it as much to them.
Benn says she thinks innate memory may yet surprise us. “We know for sure that the [BCG] effect lasts for at least one year in children. We also have indications it can last much longer,” she says, “in principle up to forty years.” One Danish study by Aaby and Benn indicated that people who had received smallpox and/or BCG vaccine at school entry had a more than 40 percent reduced risk of dying up to the age of 45. “This was seen in infectious disease, but also cardiovascular disease and neurological disease,” Benn explains.
BCG clinical trials begin
Netea, who collaborates with Benn, is wary about suggesting that a BCG shot from decades ago protects against COVID-19 but remains open-minded about the efficacy of more recent BCG shots. “We need randomized clinical trials to be able to draw conclusions,” he says. Trials are kicking off in the Netherlands, Greece, Australia, Denmark, France, Germany, and the US, says Netea, mostly to test BCG in medical staff.
In an Australian trial among 4,000 healthcare workers, “we will measure whether those who get the vaccine get less COVID-19, and if they do get it, if they are unwell for less time or have less severe symptoms,” says Nigel Curtis, a clinician and researcher at the Murdock Children’s Research Institute and the University of Melbourne.
In the Netherlands, Netea is recruiting 1,500 volunteer healthcare providers, half of whom will be randomly selected to receive BCG. He is also starting a trial soon on 1,600 volunteers over the age of 60, half of whom will receive a placebo injection, the other half BCG. Netea advocates BCG as a possible preventive measure only for at-risk groups to avoid shortages. “It could be a bridge to a vaccine,” says O’Neill, who notes that tuberculosis bacteria live in the lungs, so BCG could perhaps boost immunity there. “I am waiting for the trials of course.”
Benn is planning a trial in Denmark to look at 1,500 healthcare workers randomized to receive BCG or placebo and then followed for COVID-19 and other infectious diseases. Denmark used BCG up until the 1980s, so there will be a subgroup among the newly vaccinated who received BCG once before, at school. Benn hypothesizes that BCG benefits will be more pronounced amongst this subset of healthcare workers than those who did not get a BCG jab as children.
A risk for BCG shortages
In the absence of clinical trial data, the World Health Organization does not recommend BCG for the prevention of COVID-19. There is concern that people might jump the gun and decide BCG is effective before the trial results come out. McLaren says she worries that the rash of preprint comparison studies could inflict harm. “If people interpret these correlation studies as high-quality evidence or jump on the bandwagon of BCG, then we might invest in polices that are ineffective and take resources away from infants and children who need BCG vaccines,” she says.
Curtis too is concerned. He says he has heard about vaccine supplies in parts of Africa meant for children being diverted to healthcare workers. “That is a tragedy,” says Curtis. “This vaccine protects babies against TB. If we start using it for something unproven, there is a danger a price will be paid by young children.”
Click for link (The Scientist)
COVID-19: An Intersectional Perspective
Over the past 2 weeks, I have collected a number of COVID-19 related articles. Many of these articles offer intersectional perspectives on COVID-19. I am sharing these here as these may be of interest to Project Save the World readers. I am additionally cross-posting this to the Overview: Enabling Measures section.
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These articles are arranged alphabetical by author surname.
Title: Pyongyang Might Be Ready for a Helping Hand From Seoul
Author: Abrahamian, Andray
Publication(s): Foreign Policy
Date: 24 April 2020
Link: https://foreignpolicy.com/2020/04/24/kim-virus-korea-pyongyang-might-ready-helping-hand-seoul/
Notes: This article discusses the impacts of COVID-19 on the Korean peninsula and inter-Korean relations. The notion of donor fatigue and sanctions – due to the ongoing nuclear issue – straining potential aid for COVID-19 victims in North Korea is an alarming situation to learn about. The hypothetical possibility of joint, inter-Korean work to produce products needed globally and regionally – such as masks -or joint scientific research on the virus is an interesting venue to consider. The author additionally does acknowledge it may be difficult to gain accurate statistics around the full impact of COVID-19 in North Korea.
Title: Coronavirus could kill 190,000 in Africa, WHO warns: Live updates
Author: Rasheed, Zaheena; Gadzo; Mersiha; and Stepansky, Joseph
Publication(s): Al Jazeera
Date: 8 May 2020
Link: https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2020/05/brazil-minister-floats-idea-coronavirus-lockdown-live-updates-200506233629569.html
Notes: This article provides daily updates on the global COVID-19 scenario and additionally provides an estimate for the impact of COVID-19 in Africa.
Title: ‘We’re facing a double pandemic’: UN body warns of ‘mega-famines’
Author: Al Jazeera
Publication(s): Al Jazeera
Date: 7 May 2020
Link: https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2020/05/facing-double-pandemic-body-warns-mega-famines-200507174314330.html
Notes: This article discusses a statement by the United Nations’ World Food Programme on double-pandemics – which pertain to the notion of mega-famines originating as a result of COVID-19.
Title: Coronavirus: Asian Vets Head To Australia To Prepare For Next Pandemic
Author: Bloomberg
Publication(s): South China Morning Post: The Coronavirus Pandemic
Date: 6 May 2020
Link: https://www.scmp.com/news/asia/australasia/article/3083070/coronavirus-southeast-asia-pacific-veterinary-detective-squad
Notes: This timely article by Bloomberg and the South China Morning Post discusses a new proactive approach to monitoring pandemics in the Indo-Pacific region. This approach will also see the training of medical professionals (veterinarian surgeons) in the Pacific and Southeast Asia – including how to detect infectious diseases before they jump to humans, how to collect samples, and how to safely care for sick animals. This additionally has connections to Project Save the World’s Plank 15 and 16 and the notion of strengthening inter-regional and international disease management and surveillance systems, as well as integrating environmental, human, and veterinarian health models (via One Health).
Title: Pandemic Modelling Will Play an Essential Role in Rebooting the Economy
Author: Ciuriak, Dan and Fay, Robert
Publication(s): Centre for International Governance Innovation
Date: 29 April 2020
Link: https://www.cigionline.org/articles/pandemic-modelling-will-play-essential-role-rebooting-economy
Notes: This article discusses the interconnected nature of COVID-19, economic systems, and governance systems – and challenges in rebooting/restarting economies (regional and global) as COVID-19 public health and quarantine measures begin to lift.
Title: Five Reasons To Cut Pentagon Spending In the Era of COVID-19
Author: Hartung, William
Publication(s): Forbes
Date: 16 April 2020
Link: https://www.forbes.com/sites/williamhartung/2020/04/16/five-reasons-to-cut-pentagon-spending-in-the-era-of-covid-19/#70ec364e1fec
Notes: This article explores the possibilities of reducing national security and Pentagon related spending during COVID-19 – and the possibility of reforming these budgets in the long-term. Hartung (2020) identifies that “One of the core weaknesses of the current national security strategy is that it relies disproportionately on the Department of Defense to address all threats. It fails to recognize that the major national security challenges the United States faces are not predominantly military. Climate change, economic inequality, and global health challenges clearly pose serious risks to U.S. security. Cyber defense, espionage, and influence operations are also serious challenges. The military is ill-suited to address these challenges.”
Well for one, the government could collaborate more with Indigenous communities in Canada to address the issues they face. Unfortunately, under Trudeau’s government they haven’t done so.
Could the Coronavirus Be a Biological Weapon in the Not-Too-Distant Future?
By: Thalif Deen
The devastating spread of the deadly coronavirus across every continent– with the exception of Antarctica– has triggered a conspiracy theory on social media: what if the virus was really a biological weapon? And more specifically, was it an experimental weapon that accidentally escaped from a laboratory in China? Or as others contend, is it a weapon surreptitiously introduced to de-stabilize a country with more than 1.4 billion people and described as the world’s second largest economy, after the United States.
Both narratives are considered false, and probably part of a deliberate disinformation campaign, according to military experts. Still, in the US, Senator Tom Cotton of Arkansas has repeated the charge that the virus was a creation of the Chinese military while others source it to North Korea. And US President Donald Trump has been roundly condemned for “a racist remark” after describing the deadly disease as “a Chinese virus.”
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But one hard fact remains: the potentially destructive power of biological weapons, which were banned by an international convention, going back to 1975.
Microsoft co-founder and philanthropist Bill Gates predicted in a TED talk in 2015: “If anything kills over 10 million people in the next few decades, it is likely to be a highly infectious virus, rather than a war.”
They will not be missiles, he warned, but microbes.
And two years later, according to GeekWire, Gates repeated the same warning at a side event during the World Economic Forum (WEF) in Davos: “It’s pretty surprising how little preparedness there is for it,” Gates was quoted as saying in 2017.
Addressing the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) in Seattle last month, Gates said the impact of COVID-19 could be “very, very dramatic,” particularly if it spreads to areas like sub-Saharan Africa and Southern Asia.
Meanwhile, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation has pledged about $100 million to fight the virus, “as part of its broader efforts in global health”.
Dr Filippa Lentzos, Associate Senior Researcher, Armament and Disarmament Programme, at the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI), told IPS a biological weapon comprises a biological agent and a delivery mechanism.
In theory, she pointed out, any virus could be used as a weapon, but historically some agents have been viewed as more effective than others, e.g. anthrax, brucellosis, Q fever, tularaemia, Venezuelan equine encephalitis, glanders, plague, Marburg virus disease and smallpox.
She pointed out that much will depend on what ends or purpose the weapons are being used for.
“In terms of the coronavirus, there would no longer be a surprise factor, and resistance to the virus may in future have been built up, though the jury is still out on that one”.
As of March 19, the coronavirus has accounted for over 208,000 positive cases worldwide and over 8,700 deaths—and rising.
In the United States, there have been 49 deaths so far, and over 10,000 positive cases of the spreading virus.
The New York Times of March 18 cites a study by Imperial College, London, which estimates the virus can kill over 250,000 in the UK and more than a million in the US –- “unless officials took action to slow its spread.”
Asked if there are any countries identified as still manufacturing or hoarding biological weapons despite their ban, Dr Lentzos said over the past 100 years, about 25 countries are believed to have possessed a biological weapons programme for some period of time.
“Most programmes were of a short duration. They were small and developed limited, unsophisticated capabilities”.
Only two countries are known to have had sophisticated capabilities that could inflict mass casualties or extensive economic harm: the United States and the Soviet Union (now Russia), said Dr Lentzos, who is also a Senior Research Fellow at King’s College London and a biosecurity columnist at the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists.
Today, she said, “there is limited public information on possible illicit biological weapons activity. The main concern today is not really that countries have offensive biological warfare programmes, but that they are building dual use capabilities.” (see https://thebulletin.org/2018/07/darpas-prepare-program-preparing-for-what/)
Asked about the use of biological weapons as part of germ warfare during World War I, she said there was some covert use by Germany during World War I to infect horses with biological agents to block their use by Allied military forces.
“In World War II, there were substantial covert attacks on China by Japan, as well as some clandestine use in Europe against Germany. There has been very limited known use since 1945”, said Dr Lentzos, who is also an Associate Editor of the journal BioSocieties, and the NGO Coordinator for the Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention.
According to the Washington-based Arms Control Association, the Biological Weapons Convention (BWC) is a legally binding treaty that outlaw biological arms.
Opened for signature on April 10, 1972, the BWC entered into force on March 26, 1975. It currently has 182 states-parties. Ten states have neither signed nor ratified the BWC, including Chad, Comoros, Djibouti, Eritrea, Israel, Kiribati, Micronesia, Namibia, South Sudan and Tuvalu.”
By: Thalif Deen | Inter Press Service | 20 March 2020
What more can be done to help Northern Communities in Canada?
Sandra, the animals are fed antibiotics, not only (or even mainly) to keep them from getting sick. It is more often to fatten them up. Antibiotics actually make animals gain weight quickly, which of course is a profitable outcome for the meat-packing industry and ranchers. (And yes, the practice harms all of us.)
Here’s to hoping that a vaccine is discovered soon, that would prevent COVID from being used as a biological weapon.
Grant Robertson, the Globe and Mail reporter who broke this story about GPHIN’s demise, reported later that Canada’s auditor will investigate the deporable shut-down of GPHIN at the time when its necessity was greatest. WE shall see what comes of this.
This collection of 3 articles from the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists offers an interesting perspective on the interconnections between COVID-19 and nuclear-related industries. I am additionally cross-posting this list to Overview: (Mass) Radiation Exposure and Overview: Enabling Measures due to its relevance.
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Title: How nuclear forces worldwide are dealing with the coronavirus pandemic
Author: Krzyzaniak, John
Publication(s): Bulletin of Atomic Scientists
Date: 14 April 2020
Link: https://thebulletin.org/2020/04/how-nuclear-forces-worldwide-are-dealing-with-the-coronavirus-pandemic
Title: COVID-19 and the Doomsday Clock: Observations on managing global risk
Author: Bulletin Science and Security Board
Publication(s): Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists
Date: 15 April 2020
Link: https://thebulletin.org/2020/04/covid-19-and-the-doomsday-clock-observations-on-managing-global-risk/
Title: Another victim of the pandemic: trust in the government
Author: Macfarlane, Allison
Publication(s): Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists
Date: 13 April 2020
Link: https://thebulletin.org/2020/04/another-victim-of-the-pandemic-trust-in-the-government/
COVID-19 Impact On Nuclear Disarmament
By: Earl Turcotte
That COVID-19 has created a new global reality is clear. If there is any positive aspect to this unfolding situation, it could be a deeper understanding of the fact that the well-being of people throughout the world is inextricably linked. The COVID crisis might also serve as a cautionary tale, helping us to appreciate the fragility of life and avoid threats to humanity that are within our control.
In 2019, a team of researchers at Princeton University simulated a limited exchange of low-yield “tactical” nuclear weapons to depict “a plausible escalating war between the United States and Russia, using realistic nuclear force postures, targets, and fatality estimates.” They concluded that more than 90 million people would be killed or injured within a few hours and many more would die in the years following.
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This is far from the worst-case scenario. In 1982, the Ronald Reagan administration conducted a war game dubbed “Proud Prophet” that concluded that even a limited nuclear attack on the then-Soviet Union would almost certainly elicit a massive response, resulting in a half-billion people killed in the initial exchanges and many more from radiation and starvation over following decades.
To be sure, the nuclear threat has been around for a while. Why worry about it now more than usual, when we have so much else to worry about? Because developments of late have made the “unthinkable”—nuclear Armageddon—more probable than ever; factors that led the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists on Jan. 23 of this year to move the hands of the Doomsday Clock up to 100 seconds to midnight, closer than ever before.
Over the past few years, nuclear-armed states have embarked on a new nuclear arms race, precipitated by the U.S. under the banner of “modernization.” Russia and the U.S. have produced missiles that can travel up to 27 times the speed of sound and are considered to be unstoppable. There has been steady deterioration of the nuclear arms control regime with U.S. withdrawal and subsequent unravelling of the nuclear deal with Iran; U.S., then Russian withdrawal from the Intermediate Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty; and U.S. refusal to renew the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty with Russia that is set to expire in 2021, to name just a few. Add to the mix rising tension among nuclear-armed states, ongoing testing by North Korea, signs that Iran, Saudi Arabia, and South Korea might also pursue nuclear weapons capability, the possibility that one or more terrorist groups will acquire nuclear weapons and the ever-present potential for human miscalculation or accident.
Canada is to be congratulated for recently joining 15 other non-nuclear armed nations in the Stockholm Initiative—led by Sweden—that calls upon nuclear-armed states to “advance nuclear disarmament and ensure in the interest of humanity, nuclear weapons will never be used again.” Does this represent a more forceful posture on nuclear disarmament more generally? We pray it does. Our lives and indeed the future of our planet could depend upon it.”
URL: https://www.hilltimes.com/2020/04/15/public-health-crisis-offers-new-lens-to-denuclearization/243749 or
https://www.cnanw.ca/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/ETurcotte_HT.pdf
Coronavirus in Eastern DR Congo: Conflicts and Humanitarian Crisis
Amani Institute | 4 May 2020
As the Coronavirus pandemic accelerates in Africa, the Democratic Republic of the Congo is increasingly affected. Fear is gaining ground, especially in the east of the country, where numerous armed groups are fueling the humanitarian crisis. The local non-profit organization Amani-Institute ASBL indicates that displaced populations are particularly vulnerable because of their material living conditions resulting from armed violence. Fearing more amplified risks in the province of North Kivu, this socio-cultural movement of young volunteers has already launched the challenge of intervening in the camps for internally displaced persons to raise their awareness of preventive measures and the fight against the Coronavirus pandemic but also solidarity and non-violent communication in this time of crisis.
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We are implementing COVID-19 initiative in our community and we are interested in an opportunity to share it with you. So, our initiative is called «Tupone wote» in local Kiswahili it means «Heal together» and we are working on behalf of the local non-profit organization called «Amani-Institute» which is a socio-cultural movement of young volunteers working for promotion of a culture of peace and sustainable development in eastern the Democratic republic of Congo.
As we live in a region already weakened by the activism of armed groups, we are challenged to educate our communities on preventive measures and the fight against Coronavirus but also and above all solidarity and living together in this period of crisis due to the COVID-19 pandemic. That why, we regularly produce and broadcast radio programs including radio spots and soap operas broadcast to mobilize local communities.
We organize awareness campaigns on the street and in places where the vulnerable live, in particular people living in makeshift camps fleeing community violence or armed conflicts, and we use megaphones, drawing, songs or printed posters. Since containment measures have an impact on the lives of populations already vulnerable because of the deplorable living conditions, we thought of setting up a vegetable garden to supply women survivors of sexual violence and other vulnerable people in our environment.
We also made a small guide of conduct in confinement, to avoid idleness to push several of our young people to moral perversion and others would try to join the ranks of the armed groups active in our region here in the North-Kivu province because they don’t know what to do right now. And as an impact, we reach a lot of people, more than 50 000 people because with the radio campaign we have a large audience and even on the street people are numerous but also in the camps of displaced populations.
And now, we can see people gradually adopting responsible behavior in this period of crisis, but the challenges are still enormous because the situation here does not allow people to control themselves well because many already have a mind wrought by war and violence and they are sometimes suspicious.
But because we are motivated and dynamic young people, we see how to find small solutions with our means on board but also because we master the local context.
What do you think of our approach ?”
FROM: Amani Institute | 4 May 2020
https://amani-institute.org/2020/05/04/coronavirus-in-a-context-of-conflicts-and-humanitarian-crisis-in-eastern-drcongo/
Stopping Deforestation Can Prevent Pandemics
From: Scientific American | 1 May 2020
“SARS, Ebola and now SARS-CoV-2: all three of these highly infectious viruses have caused global panic since 2002—and all three of them jumped to humans from wild animals that live in dense tropical forests.
Three quarters of the emerging pathogens that infect humans leaped from animals, many of them creatures in the forest habitats that we are slashing and burning to create land for crops, including biofuel plants, and for mining and housing. The more we clear, the more we come into contact with wildlife that carries microbes well suited to kill us—and the more we concentrate those animals in smaller areas where they can swap infectious microbes, raising the chances of novel strains. Clearing land also reduces biodiversity, and the species that survive are more likely to host illnesses that can be transferred to humans. All these factors will lead to more spillover of animal pathogens into people.”
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“Stopping deforestation will not only reduce our exposure to new disasters but also tamp down the spread of a long list of other vicious diseases that have come from rain forest habitats—Zika, Nipah, malaria, cholera and HIV among them. A 2019 study found that a 10 percent increase in deforestation would raise malaria cases by 3.3 percent; that would be 7.4 million people worldwide. Yet despite years of global outcry, deforestation still runs rampant. An average of 28 million hectares of forest have been cut down annually since 2016, and there is no sign of a slowdown.
Societies can take numerous steps to prevent the destruction. Eating less meat, which physicians say will improve our health anyway, will lessen demand for crops and pastures. Eating fewer processed foods will reduce the demand for palm oil—also a major feedstock for biofuels—much of which is grown on land clear-cut from tropical rain forests. The need for land also will ease if nations slow population growth—something that can happen in developing nations only if women are given better education, equal social status with men and easy access to affordable contraceptives.
Producing more food per hectare can boost supply without the need to clear more land. Developing crops that better resist drought will help, especially as climate change brings longer, deeper droughts. In dry regions of Africa and elsewhere, agroforestry techniques such as planting trees among farm fields can increase crop yields. Reducing food waste could also vastly lessen the pressure to grow more; 30 to 40 percent of all food produced is wasted.
As we implement these solutions, we can also find new outbreaks earlier. Epidemiologists want to tiptoe into wild habitats and test mammals known to carry coronaviruses—bats, rodents, badgers, civets, pangolins and monkeys—to map how the germs are moving. Public health officials could then test nearby humans. To be effective, though, this surveillance must be widespread and well funded. In September 2019, just months before the COVID-19 pandemic began, the U.S. Agency for International Development announced it would end funding for PREDICT, a 10-year effort to hunt for threatening microbes that found more than 1,100 unique viruses. USAID says it will launch a new surveillance program; we urge it to supply enough money this time to cast a wider and stronger net.
In the meantime, governments should prohibit the sale of live wild animals in so-called wet markets, where pathogens have repeatedly crossed over into humans. The markets may be culturally important, but the risk is too great. Governments must also crack down on illegal wildlife trade, which can spread infectious agents far and wide. In addition, we have to examine factory farms that pack thousands of animals together—the source of the 2009 swine flu outbreak that killed more than 10,000 people in the U.S. and multitudes worldwide.
Ending deforestation and thwarting pandemics would address six of the United Nations’ 17 Sustainable Development Goals: the guarantee of healthy lives, zero hunger, gender equality, responsible consumption and production, sustainably managed land, and climate action (intact tropical forests absorb carbon dioxide, whereas burning them sends more CO2 into the atmosphere).
The COVID-19 pandemic is a catastrophe, but it can rivet our attention on the enormous payoffs that humanity can achieve by not overexploiting the natural world. Pandemic solutions are sustainability solutions.”
COVID-19 Underscores Vulnerability of Remote Communities
“Donny Morris faced an extra hurdle as he raced to keep his tiny, fly-in community safe, healthy and stocked with crucial supplies in the face of the COVID-19 crisis: an unusually warm winter and an early closure for a 700-kilometre ice road in northern Ontario.
Morris (left) is chief of the Kitchenuhmaykoosib Inninuwug (KI) Reserve, an Oji-Cree community of 1,700 people nestled on the shores of Big Trout Lake, 580 kilometres north of Thunder Bay, Ont. His leadership is vital to keeping the novel coronavirus out of the community, while ensuring members of KI have enough supplies to get them through the months ahead.
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“We’re busy suspending operations and planning to deal with this virus if it comes,” says Morris. “Everybody is hunkered down and taking precautionary measures.”
Life on a remote reserve presents unique challenges in preventing and coping with the virus if it arrives. Basic preventative measures like hand washing are more difficult in communities under boil water advisories. Physical distancing is also a challenge where a mix of poor housing conditions and multi-generational families mean more than a dozen people may live under the same roof. In addition, many families have recently welcomed teens back from Ontario high schools in Thunder Bay and Sioux Lookout, putting extra pressure on those households.
“These communities have to deal with tremendous shocks, like floods or fires, on a regular basis,” says Tracey Galloway, assistant professor of anthropology at U of T Mississauga. “Now they are managing in an overwhelming public health emergency.”
The anthropologist and former intensive care nurse is part of an interdisciplinary research group from U of T studying the role that infrastructure, such as airports and ice roads, plays in the health of Indigenous communities in northern Ontario.
“We are trying to understand how communities deal day-to-day, and during emergencies,” Galloway says. “What we’ve learned is how interdependent all of these systems are within communities that have very little ability to withstand the shocks and stresses that come in the normal course of life.”
Northern Indigenous communities face shortages of personal protective equipment for front-line workers and virus testing kits to diagnose the sick. “We don’t have ventilators, gloves or masks – there’s a shortage of supplies,” Morris says. “Everybody is waiting in line, especially when you’re remote.”
While Morris says KI is fortunate to have on-site medical staff – the reserve has medical doctor coverage for three out of four weeks each month – he is concerned that there are not enough nurses to adequately serve the community should the virus arrive.
Sick community members would neet to be evacuated by air ambulance to hospitals hundreds of kilometres away. “We don’t know how effective down south will be at accepting COVID patients if (the virus) does show up in our northern remote communities,” he says.
For now, Morris’ immediate concern is ensuring KI has adequate supplies of food and fuel.
This is the time of year that communities use the ice road to ship in supplies of basic grocery items, building materials and more than two million litres of fuel oil to power electrical and heating systems. Now, the early thaw means northern communities face the costly alternative of flying in necessary supplies.
The situation is forcing Indigenous leaders to reallocate federal program funding to cope with new costs of pandemic priorities. Morris is worried there will be financial penalties later. “Everybody’s feeling the pinch,” he says. “How are we going to adjust when we don’t have planning dollars?”
Galloway (left) says that some remote communities will face an additional challenge if – likely when– the spring floods arrive in northern Ontario. Communities that experience annual flooding, like Kashechewan First Nation, would be forced to evacuate to cities in the south.
“If they flood, the people will have to be evacuated and live in hotels,” says Galloway, adding that Thunder Bay has declared a state of emergency and may not be able to receive evacuees. “They will definitely be at much higher risk of being exposed to the virus. I don’t know how we’ll protect people in that scenario.”
Galloway lauds Indigenous leadership for their quick response to the crisis. “I see strong leadership from organizations like Nishnawbe Aski Nation, Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami and the Assembly of First Nations,” she says. “They have acted fast on the best available health evidence, and they’re co-ordinated – they’re speaking nation-to-nation with the federal government.
“The public health leaders are telling us that having a co-ordinated, cohesive response is what will protect us. The Indigenous leaders are showing us the way.”
Morris says it’s challenging to stay positive in the face of difficulty. “It’s warm and the snow is melting. You’re confined to your home and you’re not allowed to travel,” he says. “I’d say morale is low.”
“We have to be patient and hope and pray that we make it through. Praying is what we’re doing a lot of nowadays.””
ARTICLE INFORMATION:
Title: ‘Hope and pray that we make it through’: COVID-19 underscores vulnerability of remote communities
Author: Eligh, Blake
Publication(s): University of Toronto News
Date: 21 April 2020
Link: https://www.utoronto.ca/news/hope-and-pray-we-make-it-through-covid-19-underscores-vulnerability-remote-communities
COVID-19 in the Northwest Territories of Canada
This opinion piece on COVID-19 in the Northwest Territories of Canada is quite interesting. It is alarming to hear that diamond mines in the territory are being kept open as essential services. Notably, mining is a big component of the Northwest Territories’ economy and how much of a decision this played in decisions to keep the mines open has yet to be determined. Parallels may be drawn to other regions of Canada, such as the oil extraction industry in Alberta, which is still operating despite the pandemic – as well as other global regions. There is further precedent for mines and mining camps being a hotspot for COVID-19 cases, per the example at Kearl Lake, Alberta. Significant challenges have additionally arisen in Alberta due to regional flooding.
It is additionally alarming to hear that the entirety of the Northwest Territories only has 6 intensive care (ICU) hospital beds. Many Northern communities are known to have limited access to medical supplies, even during non-pandemic times.
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Title: N.W.T. mines are COVID-19 time bombs — let’s put people over profit (Opinion)
Author: Gagnon-van Leeuwen, Thomas
Publication(s): CBC North (CBC News)
Date: 28 April 2020
Link: https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/north/covid-19-time-bombs-nwt-1.5547339
Regarding Kearl Lake, Alberta:
Title: Outbreak of COVID-19 in Alberta oilsands camp raises fears of ‘super-spreaders’
Author: Dawson, Tyler
Publication(s): National Post
Date: 17 April 2020
Link: https://nationalpost.com/news/outbreak-of-covid-19-in-oilsands-camp-raises-fears-of-super-spreaders
This is why you should always wear a face mask, even when you’re adequately social distancing. You never know!
The Interconnection of Conflicts, War and Covid-19
“UN Secretary-General António Guterres’s plea to ‘silence the guns’ would create corridors for lifesaving aid and open windows for diplomacy in the war-torn zones in Syria, Yemen, Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya and the central areas of Africa.” -The Hill Times, 6 April 2020: EDMONTON-
The fury of the virus illustrates the folly of war.” In one short sentence, UN Secretary-General António Guterres opened the door to a new understanding of what constitutes human security. Will governments seize the opportunity provided by the immense crisis of COVID-19 to finally adopt a global agenda for peace?
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In an extraordinary move on March 23, Guterres urged warring parties around the world to lay down their weapons in support of the bigger battle against COVID-19 the common enemy now threatening all of humanity. He called for an immediate global ceasefire everywhere: “It is time to put armed conflict on lockdown and focus together on the true fight of our lives.”
His plea to “silence the guns” would create corridors for life-saving aid and open windows for diplomacy in the war-torn zones in Syria, Yemen, Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya and the central areas of Africa.
But the full meaning of Guterres’s appeal is much bigger than only suspending existing wars. It is a wakeup call to governments everywhere that war does not solve existing problems, that the huge expenditures going into armaments divert money desperately needed for health supplies, that a bloated militarism is impotent against the new killers in a globalized world.
All the armies in the world can’t stop COVTD-19. It’s a dark and scary moment when a bunch of microbes brings humanity to its knees. We’ve come to a turning point in world history. The old ways of building security—bigger and better weapons—are completely irrelevant now.
So what do we do when a virus blatantly crosses borders and ignores strategic weapons systems? More of the same thinking that deceived people into believing that as long as we had big guns we would be safe won’t do. We have to overhaul our thinking.
“Big thinking” is not just a bromide. It’s now essential for survival. We have to build a system to provide common security. In the midst of the Cold War four decades ago, an all-star international panel led by Swedish prime minister Olof Palme established the principle that, in the age of weapons of mass destruction, no nation by itself can find security. Nations can only find security in cooperation and not at one another’s expense. Common security, Palme argued, requires an end to arms competitions, national restraint, and a spirit of collective responsibility and mutual confidence.
Over the following years, the idea of common security broadened out beyond military measures to include new streams of cooperation in economic and social development and protection of the environment.
Suddenly, in 1989, the Berlin Wall fell. The Soviet Union imploded.The Cold War ended. In 1992, the UN secretary-general at the time, Boutros Boutros-Ghali wrote a stunning document, Agenda for Peace, incorporating the ideas of common security into practical programs for peacebuilding, preventive diplomacy and peacekeeping.
But instead of overhauling the global security system to provide common security for everyone, governments lumbered on and threw the peace dividend they had in their hands out the window. The Western countries expanded NATO up to Russia’s borders. Russia invaded Crimea. Arms expenditures shot up. Governments squandered a magnificent opportunity to build a world of peace.The culture of war was too strong and the moment was lost.
Three decades ago, the great historian Barbara Tuchman and author of The March of Folly was right when she wrote: “Wooden-headedness, the source of self-deception, is a factor that plays a remarkably large role in government. It consists in assessing a situation in terms of pre-conceived notions while ignoring or rejecting any contrary signs.”
Now, in the current crisis, Guterres is telling us that continuation of the “folly” of war is jeopardizing the security for all—the rich as well as the marginalized.The Trump administration’s call for $46-billion more for nuclear weapons when the country can’t even provide enough masks for health workers in treating COVID-19 is obscene beyond words.
And what about Canada? The government plans to increase defence spending to $32-billion by 2027. Why? To appease U.S. Donald President Trump’s gargantuan military appetite driving NATO states to spend two percent of their GDP on weaponry and all that goes with it. We can beat COVID-19 by spending money on health and development measures, not arms.
Far better to cut Canada’s planned defence spending by 10 per cent and put an extra $2-billion to $3-billion into the UN’S Sustainable Development Goals, the 17-point program centring around huge improvements in maternal health, water systems and sustainable agriculture. But we can’t get there with a continuation of “ordinary” planning. We need truly bold thinking to beat back the threat posed to common security by COVID-19.
The Canadian government wants to show what it could do on the Security Council. Switching political thinking from the culture of war to a culture of peace would be worthy of the greatest health challenge Canada has faced in the past hundred years.”
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This article – written by Retired Senator Douglas Roche – discusses the interconnection of conflicts / wars and COVID-19. The article is very interesting, relevant, and encourages a broader examination of conflicts/wars and how these shape common and international security. Retired Senator Roche’s article (2020) additionally offers broader lessons on the interconnected nature and risks of conflicts/wars and other global crises.
Retired Senator Roche is also a panelist in Project Save the World’s podcast and talk show – featured in Episode 2 (Abolition of Nuclear Weapons) and Episode 47 (After the INF Treaty?).
Please note this link is for an edition of the article published on Pugwash Canada’s website. The original article was published in The Hill Times – a news publication based in Ottawa and focused on the Parliament of Canada.
Title: Warring Parties Must Lay Down Weapons To Fight Bigger Battle Against COVID-19
Author: Roche, Retired Senator Douglas
Publication(s): Pugwash Canada (originally The Hill Times)
Date: 6 April 2020
Link: https://pugwashgroup.ca/warring-parties-must-lay-down-weapons-to-fight-bigger-battle-against-covid-19/
A .pdf of the article is additionally available on Retired Senator Roche’s personal website: http://roche.apirg.org/public_html/writings/documents/nuclear/040620_htRoche.pdf
Pandemic Could Affect Food Supplies, Power Grids, Telecommunications
“If cases of COVID-19 continue to multiply, labour shortages could affect food supplies and undermine Canada’s critical infrastructure, an internal government briefing note obtained by CBC News warns.
The document, prepared by Public Safety Canada, says accelerating rates of illness among Canadians could create labour shortages in essential services. The two most “pressing” areas of concern, it says, are procurement of medical goods and the stability of the food supply chain. “These shortages are likely to have the greatest impact in the two sectors mentioned above, as it will affect our ability to provide health care and essential goods, including food, to Canadians,” notes the document.
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“Labour shortages could also affect Canada’s critical infrastructure, including power grids, banking and telecommunications and this will further impair Canadians’ quality of life at this difficult time.”
A federal source, speaking on the condition they not be named, said there’s a fear that some workers in essential services, including prison guards, will refuse to come to work for safety reasons.
Canadian Labour Congress president Hassan Yussuff said workers have the right to refuse work if they feel unsafe, although the only resistance he’s seeing on a national scale so far is happening among long-term care workers who don’t have proper safety gear.
He said securing more personal protective equipment could calm fears across a number of sectors.
“I know this is a learning curve. You wouldn’t have thought, and I wouldn’t have thought, that grocery clerks should have personal protective equipment like a mask, or a bus driver,” Yussuff said.
“We have never encountered seeing people in those types of jobs wearing a mask doing their regular duties but because of COVID-19, I think we have to be far more vigilant and I think those workers have every right to request the proper mask and their employer should be able to provide it.
“I know everybody is scrambling to make sure that is the reality. But of course, with the limited availability of products, I’m hoping by a week or two maybe most of this might be solved.”
Fears about the stability of supply chains are already playing out in parts of the country.
Oceanex Inc., one of Newfoundland and Labrador’s largest shipping companies, said Monday that it might have to cancel shipments due to pandemic-related financial losses.
A day later, Marine Atlantic, a federal agency, said it can step in if Oceanex Inc. has to stop carrying freight to St. John’s.
“We’re looking at all options just to make sure the supply chain stays in place,” Seamus O’Regan, MP for St. John’s South-Mount Pearl, said Tuesday. “It’s way too important so we’ll make sure it gets done.”
In Alberta, the union representing some workers at the Cargill meat packing plant in High River, about 60 kilometres south of Calgary, is arguing the facility should be closed for at least two weeks to come up with a plan after 38 workers there tested positive for COVID-19.
It echoes a story playing out in the U.S., where the head of Smithfield Foods Inc. — the world’s largest pork producer — recently warned that American meat supplies are “perilously close to the edge” after it shut its South Dakota plant due to an outbreak.
“The closure of this facility, combined with a growing list of other protein plants that have shuttered across our industry, is pushing our country perilously close to the edge in terms of our meat supply,” said Smithfield’s chief executive officer Ken Sullivan in a statement.
“It is impossible to keep our grocery stores stocked if our plants are not running.”
In a briefing on Wednesday, Agriculture Minister Marie-Claude Bibeau says she’s confident Canada has enough food but acknowledged labour shortages on farms and outbreaks among workers at processing plants could affect the food supply.
“I think our system is strong enough and resilient enough that it will adapt, but these days it is particularly challenging,” she said.
“I do not worry that we will not have enough food … but we might see some differences in the variety and, hopefully not, but maybe in the prices as well.”
Yussuff said the government still needs to make sure temporary foreign workers, who travel to Canada for the spring planting, are given protective gear and proper health care and are set up in safe living conditions.
“We continue to raise concerns and [the federal government] is scrambling to try and address them,” he said.
“If they’re not careful, I think it might force countries in which these workers are migrating to come here to do this work to say, ‘Hang on a minute.’ Whether it’s Jamaica or Mexico or Guatemala, those governments might intervene and say, ‘We’re not sending our people to the kind of conditions that are inadequate.'”
The briefing document was prepared as part of the federal government’s consultations with the regions on the Emergencies Act, a step the prime minister has said he’d prefer not to take.
Last week, Trudeau sent a letter to the premiers explaining what invoking the act could entail — such as giving the federal government the power to order qualified people to provide essential services.
“It is our hope that we don’t have to use it, ever,” Trudeau said on Friday.
“We are seeing that the collaboration, the partnership among provinces and territories and the way we’re moving forward on this means that we might not ever have to use the Emergencies Act. And that would be our preference.”
The premiers vehemently opposed deploying those strict measures during a conference call last week and made that clear in writing today when they sent a letter to the prime minister.
“Premiers share the opinion that it is neither necessary nor advisable to invoke the act at this time,” said the letter, signed by Saskatchewan Premier Scott Moe, chair of the Council of the Federation.
“You have the commitment of premiers to maintain the strong working relationship we have cultivated as we face the challenges of COVID-19 together. We seek to continue to strengthen this cooperation as Canada moves forward.”
That cooperation has been playing out over much of the crisis. For example, Alberta Premier Jason Kenney has promised to send personal protective equipment to Ontario and Quebec, the two hardest-hit provinces.
The briefing document also says collaboration between the provinces and territories has been effective.
“However, as the crisis continues to worsen, some additional measures and greater intervention could become appropriate,” notes the document.
Yussuff said he also opposes triggering the never-before-used Emergencies Act to force essential workers to stay on the job.
“I think if people are naturally concerned about their health we should listen to them because nobody should risk their life having to do their work,” he said.
“The Emergencies Act is not going to solve the problem. What will solve it is collaboration and cooperation.”
Title: Pandemic could affect food supplies, power grids, telecommunications, says government document
Author: Tunney, Catharine
Publication(s): CBC News
Date: 15 April 2020
Link: https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/labour-shortages-emergency-food-power-1.5531583
This article from the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace discusses coronavirus (COVID-19) in conflict zone settings – and may be of interest to readers of Project Save the World.
Coronavirus in Conflict Zones: A Sobering Landscape
By: Brown, Frances Z. and Blanc, Jarrett
Published in: Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
14 April 2020
Read more
Link: https://carnegieendowment.org/2020/04/14/coronavirus-in-conflict-zones-sobering-landscape-pub-81518
This is so sad. There must be a way to donate the food or to organize a system where people struggling to feed there families can receive some of these crops!
How Far Away Is Safe in COVID-19?
“What is a safe distance when running, biking and walking during COVID-19 times? It is further than the typical 1–2 meter as prescribed in different countries!
In a lot of countries walking, biking and jogging are welcome activities in these times of COVID-19. However, it is important to note that you need to avoid each other’s slipstream when doing these activities. This comes out of the result of a study by the KU Leuven (Belgium) and TU Eindhoven (Netherlands).
The typical social distancing rule which many countries apply between 1–2 meters seems effective when you are standing still inside or even outside with low wind. But when you go for a walk, run or bike ride you better be more careful. When someone during a run breathes, sneezes or coughs, those particles stay behind in the air. The person running behind you in the so-called slip-stream goes through this cloud of droplets.
Read more
The researchers came to this conclusion by simulating the occurrence of saliva particles of persons during movement (walking and running) and this from different positions (next to each other, diagonally behind each other and directly behind each other). Normally this type of modelling is used to improve the performance level of athletes as staying in each other air-stream is very effective. But when looking at COVID-19 the recommendation is to stay out of the slipstream according to the research.
The results of the test are made visible in a number of animations and visuals. The cloud of droplets left behind by a person is clearly visible. “People who sneeze or cough spread droplets with a bigger force, but also people who just breathe will leave particles behind”. The red dots on the image represent the biggest particles. These create the highest chance of contamination but also fall down faster. “But when running through that cloud they still can land on your clothing” according to Professor Bert Blocken.
Out of the simulations, it appears that social distancing plays less of a role for 2 people in a low wind environment when running/walking next to each other. The droplets land behind the duo. When you are positioned diagonally behind each other the risk is also smaller to catch the droplets of the lead runner. The risk of contamination is the biggest when people are just behind each other, in each other’s slipstream.
On the basis of these results the scientist advises that for walking the distance of people moving in the same direction in 1 line should be at least 4–5 meter, for running and slow biking it should be 10 meters and for hard biking at least 20 meters. Also, when passing someone it is advised to already be in different lane at a considerable distance e.g. 20 meters for biking.
This is definitely information I will be taking into account and it also puts in perspective the closing of busy parks etc. Perhaps the better way is just running in the street, on your own or at least with sufficient distance. Stay safe…
Title: Belgian-Dutch Study: Why in times of COVID-19 you should not walk/run/bike close behind each other
Author: Thoelen, Jurgen
Publication(s): Medium
Date: 8 April 2020
Link: https://medium.com/@jurgenthoelen/belgian-dutch-study-why-in-times-of-covid-19-you-can-not-walk-run-bike-close-to-each-other-a5df19c77d08
Check also the Q&A with the Investigators: https://medium.com/@jurgenthoelen/why-in-times-of-covid-19-you-should-not-walk-run-bike-close-behind-each-other-follow-up-with-q-a-ca44e12cc54d
(1): https://www.demorgen.be/nieuws/belgisch-onderzoek-fietsen-joggen-of-wandelen-doe-je-best-niet-achter-elkaar-in-tijden-van-corona~b60aece6/
(2): https://www.hln.be/wetenschap-planeet/wetenschap/belgisch-onderzoek-fietsen-joggen-of-wandelen-doe-je-best-niet-achter-elkaar-in-tijden-van-corona~a60aece6/
(3): http://www.urbanphysics.net/Social%20Distancing%20v20_White_Paper.pdf
(4): http://www.urbanphysics.net/COVID19_Aero_Paper.pdf”
Superbugs in the Air! Garbage Spreads Antibiotic Resistance
By: Ian Angus
“In my recent Monthly Review article, Superbugs in the Anthropocene, I discussed the growth of the antibiotic resistome, the worldwide pool of genes that enable bacteria to resist antibiotics. Such genes can concentrate in environmental hot spots, where resistance can easily spread.”
“Hot spots, in soil and water as well as in hospitals, factories, sewage-treatment plants, and factory farms, provide excellent conditions for the spread of multidrug-resistant bacteria in local ecosystems and around the world.”
Add municipal landfills to that list.
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Research published this week in Environmental Science & Technology, a journal of the American Chemical Society (ACS), concludes that trash buried in landfills or incinerated can be an important source of antibiotic-resistance genes in the air. Discarded medications accelerate the evolution of resistance in the bacteria that is found normally in garbage, and that endangers people who live downwind.
The ACS reports that Chinese researchers studied bacteria community and associated antibiotic-resistance genes in the municipal solid waste treatment system of Changzhou, a city in eastern China.
“The researchers collected air samples surrounding a landfill site, a municipal solid waste incinerator and two transfer stations (where garbage is delivered and processed). Air from both the municipal incinerator and the landfill site had higher levels of particulate matter and bacteria than upwind locations. The team identified 16 antibiotic-resistance genes in the air samples and tracked their source to municipal solid waste and leachate in the system. The genes were much more abundant in air downwind from the facilities than upwind.”
There is no reason to think that the Changzhou city dump is unusual. Most if not all waste landfills contribute to the spread of drug-resistant superbugs through the air, so just breathing can be dangerous.”
—–
Title: Superbugs in the Air: Burned Or Buried, Garbage Spread Antibiotic Resistance
Author: Angus, Ian
Publication(s): Climate and Capitalism
Date: 25 March 2020
Link: https://climateandcapitalism.com/2020/03/25/municipal-garbage-dumps-spread-antibiotic-resistance/
Thank you to Evnur Taran – a fellow associate editor of Peace Magazine – for sharing this article during the editorial meeting on 7 April 2020. It is alarming to consider that antibiotic resistance could be breeding in garbage dumps and landfills, partially due to the improper discarding of antibiotic medications. It is additionally alarming to consider the implications for communities living downwind from these sites, particularly as some antibiotic resistant microbes may be distributed in air pollution emanating from these sites.
China is not the only one. There are so many other governments that censor information as well. Like Brazil!
Farmers Destroying Food Products Because of COVID-19
Linked below is an interesting article discussing the implications of COVID-19 on agricultural industries, particularly within the context of the United States of America. It is alarming to hear that farmers are destroying food products – as many clients – such as restaurants – are shut due to the pandemic. The article specifically mentions how 80% of Florida-grown tomatoes usually end up at restaurants. Some farmers are selling these at bulk to individual consumers at very low prices, however the vast majority of several crops (including tomatoes and zucchinis among others) are being allowed to rot. The article additionally mentions a situation in the Central and Northeastern regions of the United States of America where farmers have been destroying milk products due to COVID-19. This is alarming to hear considering the high levels of food insecurity in a number of global regions.
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A similar situation is unfolding in The Netherlands where vast quantities of greenhouse-grown plants – including a significant quantity of Europe’s cut flowers, houseplants, and ornamental plants for gardens, etc. are being destroyed as the demand this season has dropped due to COVID-19. According to Royal FloraHolland between 70 and 80% of the country’s total annual production of flowers is being destroyed, including the Netherlands’ famous tulips – which are a national symbol.
Article regarding the United States agricultural situation and COVID-19:
Title: Coronavirus claims an unexpected victim: Florida vegetables
Author: Lush, Tamara and Taxin, Amy
Publication(s): Montréal City News
Date: 8 April 2020
Link: https://montreal.citynews.ca/2020/04/08/coronavirus-claims-an-unexpected-victim-florida-vegetables
Article regarding the Netherlands and greenhouse-grown plants situation:
Title: Dutch destroy millions of flowers as coronavirus wilts sales
Author: Agence France-Presse’s Staff
Publication(s): CTV News
Date: 20 March 2020
Link: https://www.ctvnews.ca/world/dutch-destroy-millions-of-flowers-as-coronavirus-wilts-sales-1.4861612
China Censors Information on the Coronavirus
Here are some excerpts:
1) “YY, a live-streaming platform in China, began to censor keywords related to the coronavirus outbreak on December 31, 2019, a day after doctors (including the late Dr. Li Wenliang) tried to warn the public about the then unknown virus.
2) WeChat broadly censored coronavirus-related content (including critical and neutral information) and expanded the scope of censorship in February 2020. Censored content included criticism of government, rumours and speculative information on the epidemic, references to Dr. Li Wenliang, and neutral references to Chinese government efforts on handling the outbreak that had been reported on state media.
3) Many of the censorship rules are broad and effectively block messages that include names for the virus or sources for information about it. Such rules may restrict vital communication related to disease information and prevention.”
Read more
From the Article Itself:
(Regarding one of the methods of censorship):
“YY censors keywords client-side meaning that all of the rules to perform censorship are found inside of the application. YY has a built-in list of keywords that it uses to perform checks to determine if any of these keywords are present in a chat message before a message is sent. If a message contains a keyword from the list, then the message is not sent. The application downloads an updated keyword list each time it is run, which means the lists can change over time.
WeChat censors content server-side meaning that all the rules to perform censorship are on a remote server. When a message is sent from one WeChat user to another, it passes through a server managed by Tencent (WeChat’s parent company) that detects if the message includes blacklisted keywords before a message is sent to the recipient. Documenting censorship on a system with a server-side implementation requires devising a sample of keywords to test, running those keywords through the app, and recording the results. In previous work, we developed an automated system for testing content on WeChat to determine if it is censored.”
[…]
“On December 31, 2019, a day after Dr. Li Wenliang and seven others warned of the COVID-19 outbreak in WeChat groups, YY added 45 keywords to its blacklist, all of which made references to the then unknown virus that displayed symptoms similar to SARS (the deadly Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome epidemic that started in southern China and spread globally in 2003).
Among the 45 censored keywords related to the COVID-19 outbreak, 40 are in simplified Chinese and five in traditional Chinese. These keywords include factual descriptions of the flu-like pneumonia disease, references to the name of the location considered as the source of the novel virus, local government agencies in Wuhan, and discussions of the similarity between the outbreak in Wuhan and SARS. Many of these keywords such as “沙士变异” (SARS variation) are very broad and effectively block general references to the virus.”
[…]
“Between January 1 and February 15, 2020, we found 516 keyword combinations directly related to COVID-19 that were censored in our scripted WeChat group chat. The scope of keyword censorship on WeChat expanded in February 2020. Between January 1 and 31, 2020, 132 keyword combinations were found censored in WeChat. Three hundred and eight-four new keywords were identified in a two week testing window between February 1 and 15.
Keyword combinations include text in simplified and traditional Chinese. We translated each keyword combination into English and, based on interpretations of the underlying context, grouped them into content categories.
Censored COVID-19-related keyword combinations cover a wide range of topics, including discussions of central leaders’ responses to the outbreak, critical and neutral references to government policies on handling the epidemic, responses to the outbreak in Hong Kong, Taiwan, and Macau, speculative and factual information on the disease, references to Dr. Li Wenliang, and collective action.”
Title: Censored Contagion: How Information on the Coronavirus is Managed on Chinese Social Media
Author: Ruan, Lotus; Knockel, Jeffrey; and Crete-Nishihata, Masashi
Publication(s): The Citizen Lab (University of Toronto)
Date: 3 March 2020
Link: https://citizenlab.ca/2020/03/censored-contagion-how-information-on-the-coronavirus-is-managed-on-chinese-social-media/
Note(s): The article is quite long, but is interesting. There are additionally interesting and relevant illustrations.
What Latin American Countries Are Doing to Confront Coronavirus
By: David A. Wemer
“As governments in North America, Europe, Asia, and around the world continue to combat the spread of the novel coronavirus (COVID-19), Latin American leaders are stepping up their efforts as cases are beginning to be documented in their countries. Although the number of cases across the region remains mostly lower than the epicenters in Europe and the United States, “we are not letting our guard down,” El Salvador’s Minister of Foreign Affairs Alexandra Hill Tinoco said on March 23. “No one can guarantee us that it is not going to hit us,” she explained, so every Latin American government is taking the threat seriously.
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According to Fernando Llorca Castro, Costa Rica’s ambassador to the United States, most governments throughout the region have been preparing for outbreaks since the first news of the virus in China emerged in January. Costa Rica immediately began bringing “institutions from different sectors to the table” to discuss preparations by early January, he explained. Chilean Ambassador to the United States Alfonso Silva Navarro reported that his government set up a committee for coordination in January, while Hill Tinoco added that El Salvador “activated an enlarged health cabinet” at the same time. El Salvador also went as far as to suspend all flights from China and entry to travelers coming from China shortly after the World Health Organization declared an emergency on January 30.
As the virus spread into the region by mid-March, governments began taking escalating steps to limit its spread, despite low initial numbers. Colombia has already enacted a three-week quarantine for the entire country, the country’s ambassador to the United States Francisco Santos Calderón, explained, although documenting less than four hundred cases and three deaths so far. Santos Calderón added that “anybody seventy or older is going to be quarantined until May 30.” In Chile, over 80 percent of the cases are in the capital of Santiago, Silva Navarro reported, and in response the government has restricted internal movement to other areas of the country in order to limit the spread of the virus.
To help prepare for a potential explosion of cases, Silva Navarro said the Chilean government has already increased hospital bed capacity in the country from 37,000 to 42,000 beds, including the opening of five new hospitals. The government is also working on deploying a hospital ship to “move around the country” with spare bed capacity and a purchase of “4,000 ventilators by the end of the week. Costa Rica has just over 130 cases as of March 23, but the government has already begun construction on a specific hospital “to face only patients from [the] coronavirus,” while also “trying to keep all the [necessary] equipment and healthcare providers available to face this,” Llorca Castro said.
Regional policymakers are also focused on minimizing the potential economic effects of the outbreak and the quarantine measures. Hill Tonoco said that El Salvador has suspended electric, internet, and phone bills for three months, frozen monthly rental payments, mortgages, and loan payments for three months, and expanded unemployment protections. Similar protection measures have been launched in Colombia, Santos Calderón said, paid for by shifting money from the national oil company and the pensions systems, due to a preexisting tight government budget.
Despite the needed controls to help slow the spread of the curve, Llorca Castro maintained that regional governments “have been trying to keep the borders open” in order to sustain critical trade between countries. “Our borders are not closed,” Hill Tonoco added, “it is business as usual.” This does not mean that incoming goods and vendors are flowing full freely as normal but “the truck driver has to wear a mask,” and unnecessary passengers will not be permitted, she said, noting that border checks will ensure that goods continue to travel while restricting the contact individuals have with the general population.
Santos Calderón specifically warned about the challenge neighboring Venezuela, which has been enduring an economic and societal collapse under the regime of Nicolas Maduro for the last few years, will bring to Colombia’s efforts to slow the virus. “If something really critical is going to happen with this crisis it is going to come from Venezuela,” he explained, as poor nourishment and lack of any organized healthcare system makes the population there extraordinarily susceptible to the disease. Colombia’s healthcare system is already under strain from the millions of Venezuelans who have fled the Maduro regime and Santos Calderón fears that the refugee population will balloon as “if you are facing death and a lack of a health system, you will want to move to Colombia [for treatment].”
Santos Calderón conceded that the outbreak has created “a new challenge and [has prompted] a new way of governing during this period,” as cities, the private sector, and different government agencies all try to coordinate an effective response. “Nobody was prepared for what is happening,” he explained, but governments are taking every precaution that they can. “The life of one human being is worth every sacrifice,” Hill Tonoco said, adding that governments around the region “have done everything that is in our hands” to meet this crisis head-on.”
Title: What Latin American Countries Are Doing to Confront Coronavirus
Author: Wemer, David A.
Publication(s): The Atlantic Council
Date: 23 March 2020
Link: https://www.atlanticcouncil.org/blogs/new-atlanticist/what-latin-american-countries-are-doing-to-confront-coronavirus/
How the Coronavirus Outbreak is like a Nuclear Attack
“One thing about nuclear command and control, which the virus outbreak underscores, is that it is so hard to get good information in a crisis. The epidemic spiraled out of control so quickly in certain countries that even the best experts were rushing to figure out what was going on. To me the danger of a nuclear war is not that somebody’s going to get up one morning and say, “Ah, fuck it,” and push the button. It’s that we’re deeply flawed as human beings, and we have imperfect information, and we’re always trying to make decisions under complexity. And I think you saw the same things here. There was enough uncertainty early on that people could argue about how contagious the virus is, or how deadly it is. That uncertainty hampered the response at a critical moment.”
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This Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists’ interview with Dr. Jeffrey Lewis – author of “The 2020 Commission Report on the North Korean Nuclear Attacks Against the United States: A Speculative Novel” – discusses similarities in government response between a hypothetical nuclear attack and the COVID-19 pandemic. This interview may be of interest to readers of Project Save the World.
Title: How the Coronavirus Outbreak is like a Nuclear Attack: An Interview with Jeffrey Lewis
Author: Lewis, Jeffrey and Krzyzaniak, John
Publication(s): Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists
Date: 20 March 2020
Link: https://thebulletin.org/2020/03/how-the-coronavirus-outbreak-is-like-a-nuclear-attack-an-interview-with-jeffrey-lewis/
African Elections in the Time of Coronavirus
By: Luke Tyburski
“African elections slated for 2020 are already being affected by COVID-19, with the potential for delays and disruptions to have significant impact on election credibility, political trust, and adherence to term limits across the continent.
In a year of high-profile elections across the continent, logistical preparations are already ongoing and were meant to be ratcheting up in places like Ghana, which is slated for presidential polls in December, and Ethiopia, where parliamentary polls are set for August. Both countries still need to prepare the voter roll, but bans on public gatherings have flipped electoral timelines on their head.”
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“Ghana’s Electoral Commission has announced an indefinite delay of the voter registration exercise, though it promises to resume as soon as possible. With elections approaching sooner and facing a larger population, Ethiopia’s logistical dilemma is even greater. Registration was intended for April with campaigning to begin in May, both well within the window in which COVID-19 looms large.
While election delays would likely prompt bigger headlines than truncated registration periods, the importance of these pre-election logistics cannot be overlooked. The international community should be especially vigilant under these circumstances and be willing to speak up sooner rather than later if countries pursue untenable schedules that imperil the underlying credibility of the polls.
Unfortunately, decisions to delay or revise election programming are bound to be politicized. Opposition groups across the continent are already using governments’ virus response as a means to criticize ruling parties. The General Secretary of Ghana’s main opposition party, for example, has claimed that the ban on public gatherings is a conspiracy to rig the election. This comes as many elections on the continent already face significant trust deficits and a status quo of losing parties crying foul (based on evidence of irregularities or otherwise). In 2019, all nine of the presidential contests on the continent were marred by alleged irregularities, with losing parties taking the results to court in all but Senegal and South Africa. Coronavirus disruptions and accompanying disputes risk further cementing this sub-optimal status quo.
An element of African elections that had been improving as of late is adherence to term limits. This past year, Mauritania’s leader stepped down abiding by term limits, and looking ahead, Presidents Ouattara of Côte d’Ivoire and Nkurunziza of Burundi have agreed not to run for additional terms in 2020. Burundi goes to the polls in May, while Côte d’Ivoire will do so in October. While there have been no definitive signs of these politicians altering course at the time of writing, the potential for coronavirus-related states of emergency to be abused cannot be ignored. Further scrutiny should be placed on Burundi, where even if Nkurunziza keeps his promise, his ruling party may be incentivized to skew the playing field toward their new candidate, who analysts say may be the underdog in a free election. The polls are unlikely to be fully credible, and certainly will not be sufficiently observed, but careful attention should be placed on further attempts to restrict campaigning, which would disproportionately hurt the opposition.
Of particular note is Guinea’s decision to go ahead with elections on Sunday, March 22, which included parliamentary polls and a boycotted rubber-stamp referendum on a new constitution that will pave the way for President Alpha Condé to stay in power. With two confirmed cases, and neighboring countries having already limited public gatherings, Guinea’s decision to go ahead has understandably been met by scrutiny. It is hard not to read the situation as an example of political imperatives trumping health directives, and the election’s fallout will advise others as a test case of election administration under coronavirus.
Guinea’s health situation should be watched carefully in the coming days, with the potential for political and social tensions to rise if cases balloon following a day of crowded polling stations and intra-country travel associated with administering the election. Such a scenario would reflect badly on President Condé, whose politics-as-usual post on election day (below) is in stark contrast to the Twitter content of other African leaders, who have taken to the platform to advocate social distancing and hygiene practices.
[…]
Lastly, while presidential contests will be the most publicized, it is worth bearing in mind that parliamentary and local government elections could also be disrupted in places like Gabon (late 2020), Mali (May), Namibia (November), Senegal (late 2020), and Somalia (December). In many places, the average citizen deals more with these types of officials in day-to-day affairs and service provision, meaning that disruptions could be impactful.
With these themes in mind, the Africa Center will continue to follow elections around the continent this year in the time of coronavirus. Be sure to follow our page for updates as they emerge.”
Title: African Elections in the Time of Coronavirus
Author: Tyburski, Luke
Publication(s): Africa Source: The Atlantic Council
Date: 24 March 2020
Link: https://www.atlanticcouncil.org/blogs/africasource/african-elections-in-the-time-of-coronavirus/
A correction: Not all areas in Africa are developing and there are certainly developed regions on the continent as well.
It will be interesting to see if these trends continue for other developing regions, such as remote areas of Latin America and the South Pacific.
What Does the Coronavirus Mean for Africa?
The majority of the media articles and perspectives which I have seen shared and discussed on popular and social media are focused on developed nations. The Atlantic Council offers this interesting article around the impacts of COVID-19 [coronavirus] on Africa.
It is particularly concerning to consider the impacts of COVID-19 on slum communities that may have limited medical resources and capability to facilitate self-isolation. An estimated 40% of Africans live in water-stressed environments – leading to limitations with disinfection measures, such as hand-washing with water and soap.
Read more
The authors of this article note that Africa has had – as of 24 March 2020 – a slower onslaught of the virus – potentially due to early screening measures implemented at airports – combined with a warmer climate (which is theorized to slow the spread of the virus).
Article Excerpt(s):
“Since its emergence in December 2019, the novel coronavirus has spread rampantly across the globe, overwhelming health systems and cratering the global economy. In the United States—where federal authorities have failed to perform widespread testing for the virus and have therefore been unable to implement the targeted quarantines of infected individuals that have allowed South Korea to defeat the virus with limited disruptions to everyday life—states and cities have been forced to rely on blanket restrictions of movement, including the closure of most schools and businesses. The economic impact of these “social distancing” strategies has been severe, triggering a recession that is expected to rival the Great Depression in its severity, and leading President Trump to call for a reassessment of the response after less than fifteen days—far sooner than epidemiologists recommend.
African nations are unlikely to enjoy this luxury of choice. In the affluent enclaves of Johannesburg or Nairobi, white-collar professionals will be able to homeschool children and telecommute through this crisis, just as professionals are doing in Washington, DC. But more than 70 percent of African urbanites—approximately 200 million people—reside in crowded city slums, with limited access to plumbing or electricity. In those environments, social distancing may be effectively impossible. Some 40 percent of Africans live in water-stressed environments in which obtaining access to clean water—let alone soap—is an insurmountable daily hurdle, and for those populations, even simple measures to prevent the spread of the virus, such as frequent handwashing, will be out of reach. For the 85 percent of Africans who live on less than $5.50 per day, work stoppages will pose an existential threat. Sheltering in place for long periods of time—weeks or more—will simply not be possible. So what will African nations do? Will COVID-19 spread across the African nations as virulently as it has spread through Asia and Europe, or will Africa’s climate and demographics provide some shield?
The answer will vary greatly across and within individual countries. Africa’s smaller, middle-income, and more-industrialized nations (including Senegal, Rwanda, and Botswana) are likely to fare better than large countries that serve as regional transit and economic hubs (like Ethiopia and Nigeria), because they have greater control over their borders and are better equipped to implement social distancing measures than countries with large urban slums and international transit corridors. Countries in conflict (including Somalia, the Democratic Republic of Congo, and Mali) and remote rural villages are also likely to be hit especially hard by COVID-19. There, medical services, electricity, potable water sources, and internet connectivity are mostly lacking. In these least-served and least-accessible areas, news of the virus may spread far more slowly than the disease itself, and COVID-19 will join a list of other killers, including malnutrition and violence. Many coronavirus deaths in conflict and rural zones are likely to remain undiagnosed and unrecorded—there, as in previous epidemics, the extent of suffering may never be fully known.
The coronavirus toll in the crowded megacities and the refugee camps, however, will likely be both visible and terrible. Since the first emergence of the novel coronavirus, epidemiologists have predicted a deadly explosion of cases across the African continent. As in Europe, health care systems are expected to be rapidly overwhelmed. But while Western and Asian nations may attempt to increase their production of needed supplies, African nations do not have the domestic capability to manufacture respirators, medicines, or medical supplies, and may—if they need to rely on humanitarian shipments from donor nations whose own economies have been gutted, whose own hospitals may be overwhelmed and under-resourced, and whose borders may be closed to even humanitarian personnel—rapidly find themselves starved of the basic resources they need to track and treat this disease.
But Africa’s prospects are not unremittingly grim. Many nations have already fallen back on previous experiences containing the Ebola virus, and acted rapidly to institute temperature checks, to cancel international flights, and to impose isolation measures on those who appear ill. These measures may have helped some countries to delay the arrival of COVID-19.
Whether African nations will be able to flatten the curve after COVID-19 begins to spread locally within their populations is a harder question to answer. As the thumbnail case studies that follow indicate, many nations are adopting innovative strategies for containing the spread of the disease. African countries may also, in a best-case scenario, derive some benefit from the climate and unique demographics of the continent. Experts are hoping that the coronavirus will, like seasonal influenza, become less-transmissible in heat, and though we don’t know for sure, some experts have suggested that the continent’s relatively hot climate may help explain the surprisingly slow spread of the virus across Africa.
The continent’s demographics are another potential source of optimism. COVID-19, though virulently contagious, is a disease that is often asymptomatic or mild in youths—and a stunning 70 percent of Africa’s population is under the age of thirty. A mere 4 percent of the population is in the highest-risk age category of over-65. Because this virus afflicts the generations so differently, it is possible that Africa’s experience of coronavirus may vary greatly from that of the aging Western and Asian worlds.
Whether because of the heat, the age of the population, or because African nations were early adopters of screening measures at international airports, the continent’s hospitals have not yet been overrun and only a handful of deaths have been recorded in Sub-Saharan Africa. In spite of the low case load, capital and major cities have already, and especially in the last week, adopted a slew of new measures, from business closures to handwashing stations, to delay the onslaught of the virus.
Outside the major cities, however, there is only a slow spreading of concern. And even within many of the cosmopolitan capitals, misinformation, fake news, and distrust of government authorities is making it harder to restrict movement and limit the size of gatherings. Another source of worry is the critical shortage of hospital beds (African nations generally have fewer than one hospital bed per one thousand people, about one third the capacity of the US) and respirators, which means that only a small fraction of sufferers of the disease can hope for life-saving interventions. And a major unanswered question is how malnutrition, HIV-AIDs, tuberculosis, malaria, or other chronic conditions will interact with COVID-19. If those with compromised immune systems are more likely to suffer worse outcomes, the case fatality rate in Africa may be higher than elsewhere despite the youthfulness of the population. Data on previous epidemics—from the 1918 Spanish flu to the harsh 2002 influenza season—are spotty when it comes to Africa, but suggest that the rate of African deaths may be comparatively high (according to the World Health Organization, the case fatality rate in 2002 was globally less than 0.1 percent, but was 3 percent in Malawi, for example). But in previous epidemics, the vast majority of African deaths have been in children under the age of five—a population that has almost been entirely spared by COVID-19.
As African governments race to divert all available resources to preventing the spread of this disease, they have begun to experience significant economic strains—both from business shut downs and the failing global economy—and they may yet face a significant drop in foreign humanitarian assistance as the donor nations find themselves overwhelmed. Plunging oil prices will decimate the budgets of a number of countries—among them Angola and Nigeria—while the lack of inventory that has resulted from China’s manufacturing and export slowdown threatens business and building activity everywhere in Africa. There is some long-term hope that the coronavirus pandemic, which has put a spotlight on the world’s dangerous dependency on Chinese manufacturing, may ultimately lead to a redirection of supply chains to African and other developing nations. But in the short-term, the economic outlook is probably more dire in Africa than elsewhere.
The Africa Center’s coronavirus coverage will address a series of pressing questions in the days to come:
What will be the economic, political, and social impacts of the virus? How will foreign relations be impacted? And what new security concerns will arise from the pandemic?”
Title: What does the coronavirus mean for Africa?
Author: Bruton, Bronwyn
Publication(s): The Atlantic Council
Date: 24 March 2020
Link: https://www.atlanticcouncil.org/blogs/africasource/what-does-the-coronavirus-mean-for-africa/
Six Reasons the Kremlin Spreads Disinformation About the Coronavirus
By: Jakub Kalensky
“A recent internal report published by the European Union’s diplomatic service revealed that pro-Kremlin media have mounted a “significant disinformation campaign” about the COVID-19 pandemic aimed at Europe. Previous statements by Western officials, including acting U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for Europe and Eurasia Philip Reeker, warning of the campaign suggested that its contours were already visible by the end of February 2020.
The Kremlin’s long-term strategic goal in the information sphere is enduring and stable: undermining Western unity while strengthening Kremlin influence. Pro-Kremlin information operations employ six complementary tactics to achieve that goal, and the ongoing disinformation campaign on COVID-19 is no exception.
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1. Spread anti-US, anti-Western, and anti-NATO messages to weaken them
Russian media started spreading false accusations that COVID-19 was a biological weapon manufactured by the United States in late January. The claim has appeared in other languages since then. This messaging is in line with decades of Soviet and Russian propaganda that has been fabricating stories about various diseases allegedly being a U.S. creation at least since 1949.
These messages aim to deepen anti-American, or more generally, anti-Western sentiment. Sometimes, the “perpetrator” is the entire NATO alliance, not just the United States, a variation that the DFRLab has traced in languages other than Russian as well. The impact on an average consumer of these messages will be approximately the same: anti-Western, anti-NATO and anti-U.S. feelings often go hand-in-hand in Europe.
2. Sow chaos and panic
In the aftermath of a tragedy or crisis, pro-Kremlin media outlets often try to incite fear, panic, chaos, and hysteria. On several occasions, in the aftermath of a terror attack in Europe or the United States, pro-Kremlin outlets spread accusations that the attack was a false flag operation conducted by various governments or secret services against its citizens, or that it was staged to impose greater control over the public.
These campaigns aim to stoke and exploit emotions, among which fear is one of the strongest. An audience shaken by fear will be more irrational and more prone to further disinformation operations.
3. Undermine the target audience’s trust in credible sources of information, be it traditional media or the government
Another messaging tactic tries to convince the target audience that the truth is different from whatever is being said by government institutions, local authorities or the media, thereby undermining trust in credible information sources. Convincing people to believe bogus sources of information first requires persuading them that real sources of accurate information cannot be trusted.
4. Undermine trust in objective facts by spreading multiple contradictory messages
According to a March 2020 review of COVID-19-related disinformation cases conducted by EUvsDisinfo, one popular pro-Kremlin narrative alleges, “[t]he virus is a powerful biological weapon, employed by the U.S., the Brits, or the opposition in Belarus.” A few days after the EUvsDisinfo report, pro-Kremlin outlets then accused Latvia of producing the virus. Spreading multiple and often contradictory versions of events undermines trust in objective facts.
The Kremlin has deployed this tactic liberally: after the MH17 tragedy, after the attack on an humanitarian convoy in Syria, and after the attempted murder of Sergei Skripal. The aim here is not to persuade people to believe one particular version of events, but to persuade the average consumer that there are so many versions of events that the truth can never be found. This tactic can be rather effective: then-U.S. presidential candidate Donald Trump has previously said that “no one really knows who did it” [i.e. shot down MH17] despite available evidence and statements by US authorities.
5. Spread conspiracies to facilitate the acceptance of other conspiracies
People who believe one conspiracy theory are more likely to accept others. If your job is to spread lies, it helps to promote other conspiracies as well. The pro-Kremlin media has a history of spreading conspiracy theories and elevating conspiracy theorists. A global pandemic that naturally leads to rumor-mongering is an ideal opportunity to spread some additional unfounded beliefs.
6. Identify the channels spreading disinformation
In his book on disinformation, Romanian defector Ion Mihai Pacepa described “Operation Ares,” which used U.S. involvement in Vietnam to spread anti-American feelings both within the United States and abroad in an effort to isolate the United States on the international scene.
“All we had to do was to continue planting the seeds of Ares and water them day after day after day,” Pacepa wrote. “Eventually, American leftists would seize upon Ares and would start pursuing it of their own accord. In the end, our original involvement would be forgotten and Ares would take on a life of its own.”
When you spread disinformation, you not only try to influence the audience — you also gain valuable information from the audience. You identify the channels through which disinformation spreads and the intermediaries that help disinformation reach new audiences. You also see who counters your disinformation. Especially in a time of crisis, when rumors spread faster and travel further than normal, a well-organized disinformation campaign can lend valuable insight into how an adversary’s information environment is organized. This insight is extremely valuable for any future disinformation operations. Knowing who will help you spread the desired information, and whom to try to discredit ahead of time, makes new disinformation campaigns easier to mount and sustain.
Title: Six Reasons the Kremlin Spreads Disinformation About the Coronavirus [Analysis]
Author: Kalensky, Jakub
Publication(s): Digital Forensic Research Lab (Atlantic Council)
Date: 24 March 2020
Link: https://medium.com/dfrlab/commentary-six-reasons-the-kremlin-spreads-disinformation-about-the-coronavirus-8fee41444f60
One potential victim of coronavirus? Nuclear inspections in Iran
By: George M. Moore
“Should the new IAEA Director General Rafael Grossi decide to suspend inspection visits to protect the health of his inspectors, it could metastasize concerns about Iranian nuclear proliferation. The same result would occur if Iran acted unilaterally to bar inspectors based on real or manufactured concerns about further spread of Covid-19.
To date, there is no public information about whether the IAEA will continue to send inspectors to Iran under the terms of the nuclear deal. Suspending inspections, even temporarily, could potentially leave a multi-month gap that Iran could exploit if it chose to fully break out of the nuclear agreement. In early March, the IAEA reported that Iran had amassed over 1,000 kilograms of low-enriched uranium, nearly triple the amount allowed under the deal.
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Following this announcement, updated estimates of Iran’s breakout time—the amount of time needed to amass enough fissile material to produce one nuclear weapon—ranged from approximately four to six months. These estimates depend on assumptions about the type of design Iran might be capable of initially using. Implosion systems require less fissile material than gun-type designs. Whatever the exact breakout time might be, most estimates fall within a timespan that health officials seem to indicate might be the duration of the Covid-19 threat.
Whether Iran would attempt to use the cover of Covid-19 to begin a dash for a nuclear weapon is uncertain. However, the loss of “eyes on the ground” in the form of IAEA inspections would probably heighten the worst fears about Iranian proliferation and possibly worsen already dim prospects for cooperation. Even before the coronavirus breakout, Iran had expanded its production of enriched uranium, probably in an attempt to exert pressure and improve its negotiating leverage following the Trump administration’s withdrawal from the deal and its reimposition of sanctions in 2018.
A second and related danger is that, absent the IAEA inspections, there is a greater possibility of miscalculation regarding Iran and its nuclear potential and intentions. Without hard data, US policy makers could begin to fear the worst and assume that Iran was dashing toward a bomb, and it would be difficult to prove otherwise. Other nations, both Iran’s neighbors in the Middle East and other global powers, might also react in unexpected ways, based on insufficient information and fear that Iran was breaking out to produce a nuclear weapon. In any event, lack of information generally leads to instability and whenever nuclear weapons, or the threat of nuclear weapons, is involved, instability could be exceedingly dangerous.
What could, or should, Director General Grossi and the IAEA member states do about this situation to mitigate any potential risks? First, it is essential that any hazards to the health of IAEA inspectors be minimized. The agency must pre-screen its inspectors before they travel to identify those at heightened risk. In addition, inspectors should be equipped to deal with potential contact with the virus by using proper disposable clothing and disinfecting procedures. Inspectors should also be accompanied by medical personnel and should strive to be self-sufficient with food and housing. It is also possible that enhanced technical oversight systems could be installed to temporarily decrease or eliminate the need for inspectors. Although the IAEA has apparently used remote surveillance systems in Iran, the effectiveness of those systems in a situation where inspectors cannot enter Iran will need to be evaluated, and new or upgraded systems may be needed. Such installations would need to be installed by the IAEA in order to be considered reliable, and that would involve the same risks to those personnel as to inspectors in dealing with the virus.
IAEA member states should fully support such efforts so that inspections can continue. Though it might require extraordinary efforts by the IAEA and its board of governors, it is in the world’s interest to have the nuclear watchdog continue its verification programs in Iran despite whatever level of hazard the Covid-19 outbreak presents. Failure to do so could have dire consequences.”
Title: One potential victim of coronavirus? Nuclear inspections in Iran
Author: Moore, George M.
Publication(s): Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists
Date: 17 March 2020
Link: https://thebulletin.org/2020/03/one-potential-victim-of-coronavirus-nuclear-inspections-in-iran/
Unfortunately, Chinese New Year is often the only chance that Chinese people have time off and are able to visit their families that they haven’t seen in so long. That being said, no one knew how fast and dangerous Coronavirus was at the time- and there wasn’t adequate communication about the dangers of going home.
Coronavirus Forces Non-Proliferation Treaty Conference to Postpone
By: Tariq Rauf
“Harvard University epidemiology professor Marc Lipsitch in his “very, very rough” estimate (relying on “multiple assumptions piled on top of each other”) has stated that 100 or 200 people were infected in the U.S. a week or so ago. But that is all it would take to widely spread the disease. Lipsitch has predicted that within a year, 40% to 70% of the world’s population could be infected with COVID-19? With the world’s population hovering around 7.5 billion, that translates to some 3 to 5 billion people getting COVID-19 and that perhaps fatalities of 60 to 100 million, according to Lipsitch.
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Should unfortunately this worst case prevail, we could have the worst pandemic in human history, even exceeding the Spanish Flu of 1918-1919 that killed 50 million people. Under the above scenario, in the United States there could be up to 130 to 230 million cases of COVID-19, with up to 2.5 to 3.5 million fatalities. Obviously, these are the worst “worst case” predictions and likely will not come true, but still an abundance of caution is advisable and unnecessary large conferences and gatherings of people should be avoided. Hence, all the more reason to postpone the 2020 NPT review conference to 2021.”
[…]
What is the NPT?
“The NPT is the world’s most widely adhered to multilateral nuclear arms reduction and non-proliferation treaty. It is considered to be a resounding success in limiting the spread of nuclear weapons to five States that have signed the Treaty and to four others that are not bound by it. Mainly as a result of the NPT, some 10% of the electricity generated in the world is by nuclear power reactors contributing to clean energy, and billions of people benefit daily from the applications of nuclear technologies in such areas as medicine, agriculture, water and animal husbandry.
The principal failing of the NPT has been lack of progress towards eliminating nuclear weapons. Despite a half-century having elapsed since the NPT entered into force, as I have written previously, “The grim reality is that more than 14,000 nuclear warheads of the nine nuclear-armed States are deployed at more than 100 locations in 14 States, the dangers of nuclear weapon use are increasing, and there are stocks of nearly 1,400 tonnes (or 1,400,000 kg) of weapon-grade uranium and 500 tonnes (or 500,000 kg) of weapon-usable plutonium good for more than 130,000 nuclear warheads. Remember, it takes 25 kg or less of highly-enriched uranium and 8 kg or less of plutonium for one nuclear warhead.””
[…]
“Furthermore, some delegations have been complaining about visa denials by U.S. authorities to attend UN conferences and this year’s session of the UN Disarmament Commission had to be postponed. Costs of hotel accommodation in New York are soaring, as are the costs of food and eating out in restaurants. The expertise for nuclear verification, safety and security, and peaceful uses lies in Vienna (Austria), while that of negotiating multilateral nuclear arms control in Geneva (Switzerland). New York has no diplomatic expertise related to the NPT. Thus, there are no compelling reasons at all to convene the presently scheduled NPT review conference in New York this year.”
[…]
“An NPT review conference this year though desirable for meeting the five yearly cycle is not absolutely necessary; rather under the circumstances it poses unacceptable health risks and is a luxury that the international community can ill afford.
The best option is to formally announce the postponement of the 2020 NPT review conference to 2021 with the venue being Vienna, as soon as possible – the earlier the better. The longer this decision is delayed the greater the costs incurred in cancelling flights and hotel rooms – while government and IAEA/CTBTO delegates may well be able to afford such penalties as tax dollars pay for their expenses, for civil society participants the cancellation costs would be onerous and unaffordable as they either self-finance or rely on charitable donations.
For all the reasons noted above, including especially the continuing spread of the COVID-19 virus designated by WHO as a very high global risk, it would not only be inexcusable but also immoral on the part of the UN and the NPT Secretariats to delay any further the announcement of the postponement of the NPT review conference to 2021 and to initiate the logistical preparations for holding it in Vienna next year. ”
Title: Relentless Spread of Coronavirus Obliges Postponing the 2020 NPT Review to 2021
Author: Rauf, Tariq
Publication(s): UN Insider
Date: 2 March 2020
Link: https://www.indepthnews.net/index.php/global-governance/un-insider/3351-relentless-spread-of-coronavirus-obliges-postponing-the-2020-npt-review-to-2021
Notes: Dr. Rauf is additionally a participant in Project Save the World’s podcast and talk-show. Dr. Rauf is featured in Episode 94 “Nuclear Weapons in 2020.” Check it out if you get the chance!
I am shocked China and other surrounding nations are not implementing stricter travel guidelines right now – given the upcoming Chinese New Year celebrations and the newly emerged coronavirus. Is the massive influx of travelers worth the potential of another SARS-like epidemic? Millions of individuals will be arriving to a region with a still emerging infectious disease. Hopefully enough is understood about the new coronavirus to limit its spread during this festive time of year. It must be a difficult finding a balance between cultural tradition and public health.
The World Health Organization is scheduling an emergency meeting (in Geneva) on 22 January 2020 – three days before Chinese New Year. Talk about concerning variables!
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Link about the Emergency WHO Meeting: https://www.scmp.com/news/world/europe/article/3046924/china-coronavirus-who-hold-emergency-meeting-sars-virus-spreads
Microplastics Have Invaded The Deep Ocean — And The Food Chain
By Christopher Joyce | June 6, 2019 .
The largest habitat for life on Earth is the deep ocean. It’s home to everything from jellyfish to giant bluefin tuna. But the deep ocean is being invaded by tiny pieces of plastic — plastic that people thought was mostly floating at the surface, and in amounts they never imagined.
Very few people have looked for microplastic concentrations at mid- to deep-ocean depths. But there’s a place along the California coast where it’s relatively easy: The edge of the continent takes a steep dive into the deep ocean at Monterey Bay. Whales and white sharks swim these depths just a few miles offshore.
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The team they created has been sending Ventana up to 3,000 feet deep into the Bay in search of plastic.
“The deep ocean is the largest ecosystem on the planet,” says Van Houtan, “and we don’t know anything about the plastic in the deep ocean.” Scientists do know about plastic floating on the surface, and have tried to measure how much there is. The Great Pacific garbage patch is just one of many giant eddies in the oceans where enormous amounts of plastic waste collects.
But beneath the surface? Not much. So Ventana made several dives to collect water samples at different depths. Technicians filtered the water, looking for microplastic, the tiny fragments and fibers you can barely see.
“What we found was actually pretty surprising,” Van Houtan says. “We found that most of the plastic is below the surface.” More, he says, than in the giant floating patches.
And also to their surprise, they found that submerged microplastics are widely distributed, from the surface to thousands of feet deep.
Moreover, the farther from shore they sampled, the more microplastics they found. That suggests it’s not just washing off the California coast. It’s coming from all over.
“We think the California current is actually carrying some of the microplastic debris from the north Pacific Ocean,” he says — kind of like trash washing down off a landfill that’s actually in the ocean.
And that trash gets eaten. Marine biologist Anela Choy is an assistant professor at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography in San Diego and was lead scientist on the study. She says the deep ocean is like a giant feeding trough.
“It’s filled with animals,” she says, “and they’re not only moving up and down in the water column every day, forming the biggest migration on the planet, but they’re also feasting upon one another.”
For example, the deep ocean is filled with sea creatures like larvaceans that filter tiny organisms out of the water. They’re the size of tadpoles, but they’re called “giant larvaceans” because they build a yard-wide bubble of mucus around themselves — “snot houses,” Choy calls them. The mucus captures floating plankton. But it also captures plastic. “We found small plastic pieces in every single larvacean that we examined from different depths across the water column,” Choy says. Another filter feeder, the red crab, also contained plastic pieces — every one they caught.
Choy also has looked beyond Monterey Bay and higher up the food chain. In earlier research she did in the Pacific, she collected creatures called lancetfish — several feet long, with huge mouths and lots of saber-sharp teeth. They’re called the “dragons of the deep.”
“We’ve looked now at over 2,000 lancetfish,” says Choy, “and we’ve found that about one in every three lancetfish has some kind of plastic in its stomach. It’s really shocking, because this fish actually doesn’t come to the surface as far as we know.” That suggests that plastic has spread through the water column.
Bruce Robison, a senior scientist with the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute, says he was shocked at how much plastic they found. “The fact that plastics are so pervasive, that they are so widespread, is a staggering discovery, and we’d be foolish to ignore that,” he says. “Anything that humans introduce to that habitat is passing through these animals and being incorporated into the food web” — a web that leads up to marine animals people eat.
The Monterey Bay findings appear Thursday in the journal Nature Scientific Reports and only represent a local sample. But Robison says 70 years of manufacturing plastic may have created a global ocean problem. “We humans are constantly coming up with marvelous ideas that eventually turn around and bite us on the butt,” he says with a dry laugh.
And scientists are just beginning to diagnose the extent of that wound.
https://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2019/06/06/729419975/microplastics-have-invaded-the-deep-ocean-and-the-food-chain
The deep ocean is filled with sea creatures like giant larvaceans. They’re actually the size of tadpoles, but they’re surrounded by a yard-wide bubble of mucus that collects food — and plastic.
Who’s Checking Your Neighborhood for Flammable Brush? Maybe No One
By Lauren Sommer
“It’s one of the most confounding sights of California’s recent firestorms: One home is completely destroyed, and another right next door is still standing, even untouched.
Cal Fire inspected just 17% of properties in 2018 in areas where the agency is responsible for checking defensible space, according to a KQED analysis of almost a half-million inspection records. That is just over half of the agency’s 33% goal.
Might be luck. Or it could be because that homeowner took care of the property’s “defensible space,” an area around the building where flammable brush and grass have been cut back, depriving the fire of fuel.
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Experts say even a few homes surrounded by too much growth can put an entire neighborhood at risk. So in many parts of the state, inspectors go door to door, checking a home’s defensible space and issuing citations for violations.
But a KQED investigation has found homes and buildings in Northern California, in some of the most at-risk fire areas in the state, are rarely inspected by Cal Fire, the state firefighting agency responsible for checking defensible space in much of California.
In one Cal Fire region in the Sierra Nevada, just 6% of properties were inspected in 2018. In the Bay Area, Cal Fire inspected just 12% of properties in its jurisdiction that includes Napa and Sonoma counties.
Meanwhile, in Southern California coastal counties, county fire departments are checking homes at much higher rates, with some counties looking at 100% of properties and sending homeowners multiple reminders to make their houses safer.
“We should be doing more, doing better,” said Max Moritz, a wildfire specialist with the University of California Cooperative Extension, after reviewing the findings. “We need to have more people aware they live on a fire-prone landscape and taking action.”
Cal Fire, for its part, says it’s struggling to meet its inspection goals due to a lack of inspectors and resources.
For many Californians, a defensible space inspection will be the only exposure to wildfire planning they get.
“There’s not too many other ways people will learn about the vulnerability of their own home other than having an inspector or firefighter at their property,” Moritz said.
Lake County: Many Fires, Few Inspections
One place struggling to enforce defensible space is also one of the hardest hit by wildfires in recent years: Lake County, just north of the Bay Area.
The Cal Fire unit that covers Lake County inspected just 12% of properties in its overall region in 2018. Local fire departments have also tried to do inspections, but have been busy with the catastrophic fires of recent years.
In 2015, the Valley Fire burned almost 2,000 homes and structures in the county. Then came the Clayton Fire in 2016, the Sulphur Fire in 2017 and the Mendocino Complex in 2018. That four-county blaze was the largest in state history, scorching 717 square miles, a bigger area than is taken up by the cities of Houston or Phoenix.
“We’ve burned up about 45 percent of our county land mass,” said Willie Sapeta, fire chief for the Lake County Fire Protection District. “Lake County as a whole is suffering from PTSD just because everyone is so traumatized by it.”
Sapeta has seen first-hand the difference that maintaining defensible space can make. In 2015, the Clayton Fire was racing through tall grass and brush on the outskirts of the town of Lower Lake. But it slowed down when it approached the Lower Lake Historic Schoolhouse Museum; there, the grasses had been mowed within 100 feet of the wooden building, creating a buffer. The shrubs around the museum also had large gaps between them, another important defensible space tactic.
The museum, and the buildings behind it, were left untouched by the fire.
“Definitely a big part of Lower Lake was saved by having that defensible space in place,” Sapeta said.
Today, the hills remain covered with dead, blackened trees, but the undergrowth has sprung back, fed by this winter’s abundant rain.
Even with the scars of wildfire still visible, Sapeta says, many homeowners still haven’t cleared their defensible space.
“Life happens,” he said. “They’ve got kids. They’ve got jobs. And then all of a sudden they don’t realize we’re in June and all that brush is right up against their home.”
The firefighters in Sapeta’s fire district, one of several covering the county, try to make defensible space inspections when they can. But mostly they’re responding to emergency calls like fires, car crashes and heart attacks.
To really educate homeowners and enforce the rules, Sapeta says, he needs dedicated inspectors.
“I would love to have a fire prevention program where I’ve got a staff of six or eight people,” he said. “Nothing more in the world I’d love, to be able to do that.”
He says the funds, however, aren’t there. “It takes everything we have just to keep our doors open. The small rural counties just don’t have the resources.”
Lake County’s Board of Supervisors passed its first defensible space ordinance earlier this year, despite the opposition of some members of the public concerned about the cost of clearing their properties.
Now, even without additional funding, inspectors are visiting homes for the first time. To do that, the planning department is temporarily pulling building inspectors off their jobs to focus on vegetation.
“Other counties are in the same boat, particularly like Butte and Shasta counties,” said Mary Jane Montana, Lake County’s chief building official. “None of us have a lot money, and we’re faced with the same thing. So, we kind of just had to say, ‘We’re doing it this year.’ ”
‘Everybody Wants to Save Their Community’
Fire safety is very different in other parts of California.
‘It takes everything we have just to keep our doors open. The small rural counties just don’t have the resources.’Fire Protection District Chief Willie Sapeta, on the lack of defensible space inspections in Lake County
“All these homes have chimneys,” said Charles Butler, code enforcement officer for San Diego Fire-Rescue, squinting at a row of suburban homes. “Another thing I look for is tree canopy up over the chimney. That is a violation.”
Butler enters the information on an iPad, something he does at thousands of homes every year. He’s one of five inspectors responsible for about 45,000 homes in San Diego’s wildland-urban interface, where houses are nestled against open space or rugged canyons.
When he finds dead brush or tall weeds, he leaves the homeowner a notice about what to fix, with several weeks to comply. The city then does another inspection, and if the work still isn’t complete, follows up a third time.
If problems persist, the city hires a contractor to clear the brush. The owner is then on the hook for the cost, and a lien is put on their property. The city has to resort to this process, called “forced abatement,” on a few dozen properties each year, often at considerable cost to the owner.
Most people who don’t follow the rules are elderly or financially burdened, says Marcy Garcia, San Diego Fire-Rescue’s code compliance supervisor. In those cases, the city tries to connect violators with local fire-safe councils, the community-led groups that have grants or have other resources available to help get the work done.
Garcia says the overall compliance rate is high because the city provides crucial reminders to homeowners who may care about fire safety but haven’t gotten around to fixing their property.
“Especially in the areas where there have been fires before, they’re very receptive to it,” said Garcia. “Everybody wants to save their community.”
Cal Fire Struggling
In addition to local governments, Cal Fire is also responsible for enforcing defensible space regulations, for more than 750,000 homes and buildings within 31 million acres that fall outside city and town limits.
But across that territory, Cal Fire is struggling to meet its inspection goals, especially in rural Northern California.
A defensible space law, passed in 2005, requires a 100-foot buffer around homes in fire zones. From zero to 30 feet, homeowners must create a “lean and green” zone by trimming trees so they don’t hang over roofs and clearing dead grass and brush. Between 30 and 100 feet, they must keep shrubs spaced apart and grasses mowed to 4 inches or less.
“Our goal is to inspect every property in our responsibility area every three years,” said Steven Hawks, deputy chief for Cal Fire’s wildland fire-prevention engineering program. “Defensible space is a critical component to a home surviving a wildland fire.”
Cal Fire reports it’s close to its goal. From July 2017 through June 2018, it completed 217,666 inspections.
But doesn’t mean Cal Fire visited 217,666 properties.
A KQED analysis of almost a half- million inspection records shows the agency’s inspection rate was just 17% of properties in 2018, far below the agency’s 33% goal.
One reason for the discrepancy is that Cal Fire includes multiple trips to the same properties that failed a first inspection.
It also includes visits in areas where responsibility for inspections has been handed to county fire departments. And those rates are dramatically higher than Cal Fire’s.
The Orange County and Ventura County fire departments each inspect 100% of properties in risky fire zones every year. The Los Angeles County and Santa Barbara County fire departments get to around 60%.
While Cal Fire sends money to those counties, as well as Marin and Kern, because they do their own firefighting, it generally doesn’t cover the costs of their entire defensible space programs.
Achieving those high inspection rates takes substantial county investment. Some county fire departments have dedicated teams of year-round inspectors, while others rely on firefighting engine crews.
“It does take resources and commitment, but we do it because it’s one of the most important programs in the department,” says Ventura County Fire Marshal Massoud Araghi. “This is what we believe will save structures and will help our firefighters be safe.”
Araghi estimated a 99.9% compliance rate from the county’s homeowners, something he attributes to annual inspections.
“It’s very important the time period is consistent,” he said. “Everyone knows they have to have it clean by a certain time. If you have long periods of time in between, you won’t be successful.”
Resources Lacking
In some high-risk fire areas where Cal Fire does inspections, properties receive dramatically few inspections.
At the low end, just 6% of properties received inspections in 2018 by the Cal Fire unit that covers the Sierra Nevada counties of Amador, El Dorado, Sacramento and Alpine. At that rate, which has remained mostly consistent since 2010, each property would be visited about once every 16 years.
The same pattern is found in the nearby rural counties of Nevada, Yuba, Placer, Sierra and Sutter, where 7% of properties were inspected in 2018.
Even in Sonoma, Napa and Lake counties, where recent fires have been historically devastating, Cal Fire inspected just 12% of properties last year.
Cal Fire gives several reasons for the low numbers.
Every year, the agency hires between four and six defensible space inspectors in each of its 21 units throughout the state, but those inspectors are only funded to work three months.
Beginning in 2011, that money came from a $152 annual fee on homeowners within Cal Fire’s jurisdiction. But the levy was opposed by many in rural counties who saw it as an added tax, and in 2017, Gov. Jerry Brown signed a bill to suspend it.
Since then, Cal Fire’s defensible space funding has come from revenue generated by the state’s cap-and-trade program, designed to lower carbon emissions.
Without more funding, Cal Fire Deputy Chief Hawks says, it will be tough to increase the inspection rate.
Another issue is that inspectors are not distributed in proportion to the number of properties in each region. A Cal Fire unit that covers 35,000 properties has four seasonal inspectors, for example, but one with double that number has just six.
“We should look at the numbers like you’re looking at them,” Hawks told KQED. “We may have some units that have a larger number of parcels than others, and they should get more of the resources.”
Cal Fire has the power to hire contractors to clean up properties when homeowners don’t comply, but it’s not something the agency currently does.
“We don’t really have the staff to accomplish that mission,” Hawks said.
In general, Hawks says, Cal Fire hasn’t been able to hire enough people to take care of its defensible space responsibilities.
“We have not been able to fill our defensible space inspectors in every unit every year,” he said. “So having enough qualified people on the list to fill our positions is important.” Hawks could not provide numbers for how many positions have gone unfilled or the reasons why.
Typically, some inspections are done by the agency’s firefighters during down times. But with fire seasons getting longer and more intense, there hasn’t been much of that in recent years.
“It’s difficult with the fire seasons being the way they’ve been,” Hawks said.
Pandemics and the Nuclear Threat Initiative
Important news relating to pandemics has been published by the Nuclear Threat Initiative.
It says “The Global Health Security (GHS) Index, a benchmark assessment of biosecurity preparedness across 195 countries produced by NTI and the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security, is earning news media attention around the world in the wake of its recent launch. A Washington Post article on the index highlighted its findings and recommendations, and the paper’s editorial board noted that “the world flunked.” The GHS Index also has garnered coverage across 14 countries including reports in the UK’s Daily Mail, Singapore’s The Strait Times , South Africa’s The Herald, and India’s Press Trust of India.”
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The title of the article is– GHS Index: Washington Post Calls on Countries to Improve Disease-Response Preparedness as News Coverage Extends from UK to South Korea
Interesting and timely article – given developments in the last few months. The site mentions you shared this 5 months ago – back in November 2019 – though COVID-19 did not emerge until December 2019.
Report says deadly pandemic could sweep world in 36 hours – killing millions
New Zealand Herald, 26 Oct, 2019 5:15pm
A major new report has found that the world is not prepared for the next global pandemic. A review of health care systems already in place across the world found just 13 countries had the resources to put up a fight against an “inevitable” pandemic.
Scientists warned that an outbreak of a flu-like illness could sweep across the planet in 36 hours and kill tens of millions due to our constantly-travelling population.
Among the countries ranked in the top tier were Britain, the US, Australia, Canada, France and Holland.
New Zealand had a lower ranking of “more prepared”, alongside European countries such as Spain, Russia, Italy and Germany.
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The majority of African countries were deemed the “least prepared” of all the countries due to poor immunisation.
Given how fast the outbreak is likely to spread, experts warned even top tier nations may struggle to curb the disease.
The report, known as the Global Health Security (GHS) index, was drawn-up by scientists at the Johns Hopkins University Centre for Health Security, and the Nuclear Threat Initiative (NTI).
In their recommendations, the team said governments invest more money in preparing for such events, and do routine simulation exercises.
They also called for more private investment into countries’ pandemic preparations.
The scientists assessed how countries around the world would deal with an inevitable pandemic, by looking at a range of factors.
A world map shows areas that were most, more and least prepared for a global pandemic. Greenland (in grey) was not studied.
Income, border security, health care systems, as well as political, socioeconomic and environmental risk factors that can limit response, were all considered.
The average overall index score was just over 40 out of a possible 100. Scientists say this points “to substantial weaknesses in preparedness”.
But they found that even among the 60 high-income countries assessed, the average score was barely over 50.
Writing in their report, the scientists said: “The Index, which serves as a barometer for global preparedness, is based on a central tenet: a threat anywhere is a threat everywhere.
“Deadly infectious diseases can travel quickly; increased global mobility through air travel means that a disease outbreak in one country can spread across the world in a matter of hours.”
The report comes a month after a group headed by a former World Health Organisation (WHO) chief issued a stark warning that Disease X was on the horizon.
The report, named A World At Risk, said current efforts to prepare for outbreaks in the wake of crises such as Ebola are “grossly insufficient”.
It was headed by Dr Gro Harlem Brundtland, the former Norwegian prime minister and director-general of the WHO,
She said in the report: “The threat of a pandemic spreading around the globe is a real one.
“A quick-moving pathogen has the potential to kill tens of millions of people, disrupt economies and destabilise national security.”
The team drew up a map of the world with a list of possible infections which could trigger the hypothetical outbreak.
These were split into “newly emerging” and “re-emerging/resurging”. Among the former were the Ebola, Zika and Nipah viruses, and five types of flu.
And the latter included West Nile virus, antibiotic resistance, measles, acute flaccid myelitis, Yellow fever, Dengue, plague and human monkeypox.
A report last month called A World At Risk listed dozens of illnesses which the experts suggested had the potential to trigger an outbreak which could spiral out of control.
The report referenced the damage done by the 1918 Spanish flu pandemic and said modern advances in international travel would help the disease spread faster.
A century ago the Spanish flu pandemic infected a third of the world’s population and killed 50 million people.
But more recently an Ebola epidemic in West Africa claimed the lives of more than 11,000 people.
Another outbreak of the deadly virus has killed 2,100 in the Democratic Republic of Congo and the fatalities are rising.
Leo Abruzzese, senior global advisor at The Economist Intelligence Unit, who helped compile the report, said the report helped to identify important gaps in global preparedness.
“Without a way of identifying gaps in the system, we’re much more vulnerable than we need to be,” he said.
“The index is specific enough to provide a roadmap for how countries can respond, and gives donors and funders a tool for directing their resources.”
TOP 10 COUNTRIES BEST PREPARED
United States – 83.5
United Kingdom – 77.9
Holland – 75.6
Australia – 75.5
Canada – 75.3
Thailand – 73.2
Sweden – 72.1
Denmark – 70.4
South Korea – 70.2
Finland – 68.7
TOP 10 COUNTRIES WORST PREPARED
Equatorial Guinea – 16.2
Somalia – 16.6
North Korea – 17.5
São Tomé and Príncipe – 17.7
Marshall Islands – 18.2
Yemen – 18.5
Kiribati – 19.2
Syria – 19.9
Guinea Bissau – 20
Gabon – 20
“Global Health Security Index Identifies Major Gaps in Preparedness for Epidemics, Pandemics”
Nuclear Threat Initiative News, Oct 24, 2019.
Despite growing risks that infectious disease outbreaks can lead to international epidemics and pandemics, national health security is fundamentally weak around the world, and no country is fully prepared to handle a potentially catastrophic outbreak, according to the inaugural Global Health Security (GHS) Index released today.
A joint project from the Nuclear Threat Initiative (NTI) and the Johns Hopkins Center for Global Health Security, with research by The Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU), the GHS Index is the first comprehensive assessment and benchmarking of health security and related capabilities across 195 countries.
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It finds severe weaknesses in countries’ abilities to prevent, detect, and respond to significant disease outbreaks and recommends that the UN Secretary-General call a heads-of-state-level summit on biological risks by 2021. The average overall 2019 GHS Index Score is 40.2 out of a possible score of 100. Even among the 60 high-income countries assessed, the average score is 51.9.
“The results are alarming: All countries—at all income levels—have major gaps in their capabilities, and they aren’t sufficiently investing in biological preparedness,” NTI Co-Chair and CEO Ernest J. Moniz said today. “The bottom line is that global biological risks are growing—in many cases faster than health systems, security, science, and policy can keep up. We need to ensure that all countries are prepared to respond to these risks.”
“Health security is a collective responsibility.”
NTI Vice President Beth Cameron in The Washington Post
The GHS Index offers findings across six categories; recommendations for health and finance ministers, international organizations, philanthropists, funders, and academics; 195 country profiles, and more. It is available in three formats:
The website, GHSIndex.org, which shows high-level results and country profiles in an easily accessible and interactive format, including score simulators for each country.
The EIU data model in Excel, downloadable through the website.
The print report, which includes findings, recommendations, country profiles, the EIU methodology, a glossary, and more.
UC Davis gets $85 million to lead fight to prevent deadly Asian, African pandemics
By Cathie Anderson, The Sacramento Bee, October 10, 2019
The U.S. Agency for International Development gave the University of California, Davis, an $85 million vote of confidence with a five-year grant to train academic researchers in Asia and Africa in preventing animal diseases from spilling over into human populations, the university announced Wednesday.
Woutrina Smith, the principal investigator at UC Davis, said her team takes the view that humans don’t exist in isolation and that there’s a connection between the health of people, animals and the environment. They call this concept One Health, and medical and veterinary researchers at universities and nongovernmental agencies around the world are adopting it.
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“We’ll be working closely with established networks of universities that are already partnering to try and understand how we can work more as a team to be able to understand these spillovers, disease prevention, how what we know about animals feeds over to protecting the health of people and vice versa,” Smith said. “Those are some of the basic ideas of why we’re doing this as a health professional school that has both veterinary and human health represented and bringing the environment in as well.”
The American Veterinary Medical Association and the American Medical Association have endorsed the One Health approach since 2008. Smith said UC Davis began 10 to 15 years ago to work collaboratively to promote the health of people and animals in their shared environments.
Explore where you live
While the UCD-led consortium just secured the grant, Smith said, the university has worked with U.S. AID for 10 years on a $200 million project known as PREDICT to train private-sector experts in Africa and Asia to safely do One Health surveillance in areas where wildlife and humans coexisted.
That capability didn’t exist in many countries on those continents. That’s why Ebola, swine flu and other pandemics caught the world off guard.
“We’ve really established teams in these countries, where we expect new viruses to spill over from animals to people,” Smith said. The teams “are prepared to detect them earlier, respond earlier and contain outbreaks. … The One Health approach has really built the expertise of the in-country teams. They’re now much more able to be of use to their (government) ministries and their universities.”
Smith said more than 6,000 people in 30 countries not only gained marketable skills in disease detection, but also learned how to compete against foreign businesses. In a testament to their success, UC Davis’ One Health Institute reported they found more than 1,000 viruses that pose a public health concern.
UCD continues to work with some of those teams, but it was close to wrapping up work on the PREDICT project when U.S. AID announced it was seeking a team to lead the second phase of the One Health Workforce project. Since PREDICT was almost over, Smith said, the UCD team decided to take on new work.
The team won the grant, beating out a consortium led by the University of Minnesota and Tufts University that led the initial, five-year phase of One Health WorkForce.
“We will continue to look for ways to continue to collaborate with the previous groups because they did a lot of great work,” Smith said. “We would love help that continue. We have reached out to them to explore how that might work.”
UCD’s One Health Institute will work alongside Asian and African academics to design and execute activities such as developing sustainable training programs that will teach current and future professionals the skills and competencies needed to address the complex health challenges of zoonotic diseases.
In some cases, Smith said, the consortium’s team will be working with the same people they worked with on the PREDICT project.
Smith’s consortium includes not only UC Davis colleagues from other academic disciplines but also a range of experts from Columbia University, EcoHealth Alliance, UC Berkeley, UC Irvine, Ata Health Strategies, the University of New Mexico and Sandia National Laboratories.
Read more here: https://www.sacbee.com/news/local/health-and-medicine/article235973487.html?fbclid=IwAR2za5XzQVYJmm2tqz50PzF58Z4x1KWzwTRsqvvDRCHxDGxnd3-EeCHXPvU#storylink=cpy
Some good news! Glad to hear there’s funding to prevent pandemics.
Bacteriophages Instead of Failing Antibiotic Treatments
An interesting element to explore in more detail are organisms called bacteriophages. Bacteriophages are viruses that target bacteria rather than other cells. They are a branch of disease treatment which is potentially promising should conventional antibiotic treatments fail. The USSR – particularly Georgia – was considered a “stronghold” for research into phage therapy for decades. Only recently has this research and its application for difficult infections become more popular – beyond individual researchers – in countries outside the former USSR. The USA only opened its first Phage Therapy Research Center in 2018. Interestingly, one source of phages to use in this therapy are water treatment plants – as untreated water is considered a hotspot for undiscovered phages that have potential for medical applications. Application for phages include antibiotic resistant infections, as well as radiation burns where conventional treatments to kill infection may not be as effective. One limitation is the phages are quite species-specific and may only target one or two species of bacteria – so finding the right match is vital for patient care and ensuring effective treatment.
An interesting historical overview of Georgia’s connection to phage therapy is available here: https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(05)66759-1/fulltext
Animal Lovers: Beware of Zoonotic Diseases!
A dog with a zoonotic disase: rabies
Animal Lovers and Zoonotic Diseases: 5 Things to Know
By Casey Barton
Wednesday, October 9, 2019
Zoonotic diseases, or zoonoses, are on the rise. That may first bring to mind exotic diseases like Ebola, but the reality is that many zoonotic infections happen closer to home, often during everyday activities.
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In 2018, we saw an outbreak of psittacosis in poultry plant workers, drug-resistant brucellosis linked to drinking raw (unpasteurized) milk, dog lick–related Capnocytophaga infections, and Salmonella infections linked to pet guinea pigs, hedgehogs, and backyard poultry. These were among many other illnesses and outbreaks caused by contact with a range of animals and other vectors like mosquitos and ticks. Over the past decade, outbreaks of zoonotic infections have been linked to animals—from pets to farm animals to wildlife—in virtually all settings, whether at home or away.
Zoonotic diseases can cause illnesses that range from minor skin infections like ringworm to deadly illnesses like rabies and anthrax. Many zoonotic pathogens are enteric, with Campylobacter, Cryptosporidium, Salmonella, and Shiga toxin–producing Escherichia coli being the most common enteric pathogens linked to animal contact.[1] From 2009 to 2017, more than 350 outbreaks of human zoonotic diseases caused by enteric pathogens were linked to animal contact and reported to CDC.[2] Other zoonotic pathogens of concern include Bartonella, Brucella, Capnocytophaga, hantaviruses, Streptobacillus moniliformis, and Toxoplasma gondii.
Anybody who comes in contact with animals—pet owners, zoo workers, travelers, attendants and participants in the summer ritual of county agricultural fairs, and more—is at risk. And that means almost any patient who walks into a clinic or emergency department. Clinicians should always have this potential on their radar.
Zoonotic diseases aren’t going away anytime soon, so it’s important to understand the risks and recommendations. Here are five things to know.
1. More than half of all known infectious diseases in humans are zoonotic.
Approximately 60% of all known infectious diseases in humans are zoonotic. An even larger percentage (70%) of new or emerging infectious diseases of humans have an animal origin.[3,4] Zoonotic diseases are estimated to be responsible for at least 2.5 billion cases of human illness and 2.7 million deaths worldwide annually.[5] Growth of the human population, changes in the environment and agricultural practices, and increases in international travel and trade have all given both recognized and emerging zoonotic diseases new opportunities to spread.
2. Any contact with any animal can pose a risk.
Any contact with any animal in any setting can present a risk for zoonotic disease transmission. Direct contact is not always necessary, and the infected animal may not seem sick. Even asymptomatic animals or those that appear healthy can spread infections to people. Transmission can also occur via contact with areas where animals live and roam (including beds, cages, tanks, coops, stalls, and barns); their food, water, waste (feces or urine), or other body fluids; and belongings (including toys, bowls, and other supplies).
Zoonotic diseases can resemble common illnesses, so a thorough patient history should be taken. In addition to the basics—fever, malaise, gastrointestinal symptoms, respiratory symptoms, rashes—ask about any contact with animals. A family may need prompting to remember that they stopped at a pet store on their last trip to the mall or played with a neighbor’s new puppy. They are even less likely to be aware of potential exposures they may have had without even touching an animal, like stepping in feces while hiking or visiting the zoo.
Patients also may not be aware of specific but serious risks like bat bites, which can be very small but can carry a risk for rabies. If the patient has had exposure to an animal, additional questions could include whether the animal has recently appeared sick, might have been exposed to wildlife, is under the care of a veterinarian, and is up-to-date on vaccinations for zoonoses—such as rabies—that are vaccine-preventable.
3. Several recent outbreaks have been linked to pets.
Although some animals are more likely to transmit certain pathogens, no animal is completely without risk.
More than half of US households own a pet, and pets have the potential to spread a variety of illnesses. Nontraditional pets such as reptiles, amphibians, and small mammals are increasingly common. Additionally, farm animals like backyard chickens and other poultry are increasingly being treated as pets.[6]
Pets that are more likely to transmit zoonotic pathogens include reptiles (lizards, snakes, and turtles), amphibians (frogs, newts, toads, and salamanders), and rodents (mice, rats, hamsters, and guinea pigs). In the past decade, reported outbreaks of human illness have been linked to contact with pet hedgehogs, turtles, lizards, rats, mice, guinea pigs, puppies, and other animals. Every year, backyard poultry, including chickens, ducks, geese, and turkeys, have been linked to multiple outbreaks of Salmonella infections. Additionally, dry pet food and frozen or live feeder rodents for reptiles and amphibians have been associated with outbreaks of human illness.[7]
4. Certain types of patients are at higher risk.
As is true for most infectious illnesses, children younger than 5 years of age, adults over 65 years of age, immunocompromised individuals, and in some cases, pregnant women, are more likely to have serious consequences from infection with zoonotic pathogens. Children under 5 years of age are also more likely to acquire zoonoses for obvious reasons, like putting their hands and other objects in their mouths after playing with animals or touching contaminated objects. Despite best efforts of adults, they are also less likely to properly wash their hands.
Infants can get infected through indirect contact and cross-contamination, even if they do not directly touch an animal. For example, if someone cleans a pet’s habitat in the kitchen sink and then prepares a baby bottle in the same sink, germs from the habitat can cross-contaminate the baby bottle. CDC recommends that children younger than 5 years of age avoid contact with reptiles, amphibians, poultry, and rodents.
Pregnant women are at higher risk for a number of zoonotic infections and their complications. Infection with the protozoan parasite Toxoplasma gondii during pregnancy can cause congenital infection that can result in miscarriage, stillbirth, or congenital toxoplasmosis. CDC has long advised pregnant women with pet cats to avoid changing cat litter. If no one else can perform the task, they should wear disposable gloves and wash their hands with soap and water afterwards. The cat’s litterbox should be changed daily. Pregnant women do not need to rehome cats they already own, but they should not adopt a new cat or handle stray cats, especially kittens.
Other zoonotic diseases of concern for pregnant women include psittacosis, lymphocytic choriomeningitis virus (LCMV), and Q fever. Obstetricians should consider household pets and occupation when advising patients on risks for pregnancies, and recommend that patients with pets consult with their veterinarian about ways to reduce risk.
These higher-risk groups do not need to avoid contact with all animals, but they do need to avoid contact with animals that pose a higher risk for illness, including reptiles, amphibians, poultry, and rodents. Keep in mind that pets and other animals can shed and transmit pathogens even when they appear healthy. People at higher risk should always practice healthy habits around all animals to decrease the risk for zoonotic diseases.
5. Patients need to hear from you about how to stay healthy around animals.
It’s always a good idea to remind patients about healthy habits around pets and other animals to reduce the risk for zoonotic infections. Animals are an important part of patients’ lives, and studies have shown that the bond between people and their pets can increase fitness, lower stress, and bring happiness to their owners. Many people don’t realize the hidden risks associated with puppy kisses, handling pet food, cleaning reptile tanks in the kitchen sink, or leaving dog poop in the yard. As a trusted source of information, you can help your patients—especially those at higher risk for infection or complications—understand the risks and take steps to stay healthy both at home and away from home.
Opportunities for interactions with animals are expanding, and so are zoonoses. Resources for physicians and patients are available on CDC’s Healthy Pets, Healthy People website, and a downloadable patient handout is included here.
Web Resources
CDC’s Healthy Pets, Healthy People
Information for Healthcare Providers on Zoonotic Diseases
US Outbreaks of Zoonotic Diseases Spread between Animals and People
Compendium of Measures to Prevent Disease Associated with Animals in Public Settings, 2017
CDC Stay Healthy Around Pets Educational Materials and Printables
Could These Bacteria Spread to Humans?
In 2015 – in Central Asia – about half of the world’s saiga antelope died in a matter of weeks. This totalled between 134 000 and 200 000 animals (though perhaps more). The culprit was a hemorrhagic septicemia induced by a bacteria (Pasteurella multocida) that is normally found in the respiratory tract of this species. It is unclear what caused the sudden leap in mortality and virulence. A similar incident occurred in 1988 – where 50 000 antelope died within the space of an hour. A research team lead by Dr. Richard Anthony Kock at the Royal Veterinarian Society is investigating intervention measures to prevent another similar incident from unfolding in the future.
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Link: https://www.theguardian.com/science/animal-magic/2016/apr/14/mass-death-saiga-antelope-kazakhstan-bacterial-infection
USSR’s Vozrozhdeniya Island: Deadliest Place on Earth?
An alarming BBC article about the legacy of the USSR’s Vozrozhdeniya Island – code name Aralsk-7 in the Cold War. Vozrozhdeniya (Rebirth or Renaissance Island) is located in the Aral Sea. It used to be an island with the town of Kantubek – but the retreating Aral Sea has greatly increased its accessibility to adjacent land.
“Aralsk-7 was part of a bioweapons program on an industrial scale.Now Vozrozhdeniya has swallowed up so much of the sea that it’s swelled to 10 times its original size, and is connected to the mainland by a peninsula. But it is thanks to another Soviet project that it is one of the deadliest places on the planet.”
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From the 1970s, the island has been implicated in a number of sinister incidents. In 1971, a young scientist fell ill after a research vessel, the Lev Berg, strayed into a brownish haze. Days later, she was diagnosed with smallpox. Mysteriously, she had already been vaccinated against the disease. Though she recovered, the outbreak went on to infect a further nine people back in her hometown, three of whom died. One of these was her younger brother.
A year later, the corpses of two missing fishermen were found nearby, drifting in their boat. It’s thought that they had caught the plague. Not long afterwards, locals started landing whole nets of dead fish. No one knows why. Then in May 1988, 50,000 saiga antelope which had been grazing on a nearby steppe dropped dead – in the space of an hour.”
[…]
“In 1988, nine years after an anthrax leak at Compound 19 led to the deaths of at least 105 people, the Soviets finally decided to get rid of their cache. Huge vats of anthrax spores were mixed with bleach and transported the port town of Aralsk, on the shores of the Aral Sea (now 16 miles (25km) inland), where they were loaded onto barges and transported to Vozrozhdeniya. Some 100 to 200 tonnes of anthrax slurry was hastily dumped in pits and forgotten. Most of the time, anthrax bacteria live as spores, an inactive form with extreme survival skills. They’ll shrug off pretty much anything you care to throw at them – from baths of noxious disinfectants to being roasted for up to two minutes at 180C (356F). […] The precise location of the anthrax cache was never disclosed, but as it turns out this wasn’t a problem. The pits were so enormous, they were clearly visible in photos taken from space. Viable spores were found in several soil samples, and the US pledged $6m (£4.6m) for a project to clean the place up.”
This demonstrates not just the alarming nature of biological and chemical weapons – but their legacy across time and place. An additional alarming trend is that the island is a target for scrap metal harvesters – due to the severely reduced agricultural and fishing industry. Vozrozhdeniya Island is a “perfect storm” of intersections of various threats and measures. The island routinely faces massive dust storms, as well. Nick Middleton touched on the island in one of their recent books.
Link: http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20170926-the-deadly-germ-warfare-island-abandoned-by-the-soviets
Officers Knew About Zika Way Before Outbreak!
The Zika outbreak in French Polynesia (circa. 2013) is a prime example of why this incident system would benefit global health. Apparently, regional health offices on remote Pacific islands were reporting cases of Zika as early as 2012/2013. However, due to the remoteness and delayed communications between regional outposts and central data processing centers – it was not flagged in a timely manner.
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Then – in 2015 (?) the Va’a Canoe Games (and subsequently the Olympics in 2016) took place in Brazil in Latin America. This allowed a corridor for the relatively rare virus to reach the Americas – where the epidemic has gained a significant foothold.
Of interest is that Zika may have been in the equatorial Pacific since at least the 1950s – though quite rare in humans.
Monitor the health of farm animals
Satish Srivastava notes:
So far, a total of 200 zoonotic diseases have been identified. Important among them are tuberculosis, Crohn’s disease, salmonellosis, anthrax, brucellosis, shigellosis and many more. Consumption of milk, meat, eggs from animals infected with any of such disease results in similar disease in humans. A constant monitoring of the health status of farm animals and birds by veterinarians minimize the risk of transmission of diseases to human population.
Ongoing Epidemic of Newcastle Virus in Toronto
Tommy Thompson Park in Toronto has had an ongoing epidemic of Newcastle virus in the cormorants since at least 2018. This is alarming as the municipal ward adjacent to Tommy Thompson Park recently approved “backyard chickens” — a program allowing homeowners to keep up to four chickens in their back yards.
Newcastle virus is highly contagious in avian species, with both neurological and respiratory symptoms. Some have compared it to SARS. Newcastle virus has previously jumped to humans via zoonoses, per a few cases in an Israeli poultry processing plant in the 1960s. It is unclear to me whether the MNR in Ontario has investigated such possibilities.
Read more
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/cormorants-toronto-disease-1.4795873
ISOHA Mentorship Program
A great organization called ISOHA — International Student One Health Alliance — has a mentorship program . Here’s part of their blurb about it on their Facebook page. We heartily encourage them!
“International Student One Health Alliance
“July 31 at 9:41 AM ·
“We launched our pilot ISOHA Mentorship Program this year after receiving strong interest from both mentors and mentees. Ultimately, we matched over 230 students representing 34 countries with over 150 professionals from 41 different countries and with a vast range of backgrounds including veterinarians, doctors, engineers, and social scientists. Thanks to their hard work and dedication to the program, interdisciplinary One Health networks expanded around the world….”
There seems to be huge support for Incident Management Systems in southern Africa. If you google the term, the organizations discussion and practicing it are generally located there. And they seem to have a good time together socializing. Most of the other articles you find about the subject are wooden and technical. Hello, South Africa!
Climate Change will Expose us to Age-Old Pathogens
Several years ago a frozen reindeer in Siberia defrosted, releasing anthrax in a remote Russian village, killing over 70 people. Is there a risk of frozen, Arctic graves defrosting, and releasing diseases thought to be extinct and/or uncommon? This Anthrax case study reminded me of reports of diphtheria, smallpox, and Spanish flu in remote Arctic regions.
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Could pathogens be in a natural “cold storage” in old graves – an essential climate-change/pandemic time-bomb? How deep were bodies buried in the Arctic during the diphtheria, smallpox, and Spanish flu epidemics – given the levels of permafrost and remote settlements? Norway has certainly considered this risk (re: Arctic graves and diseases) – as Svalbard has prohibited people from dying on the island! That is, you are not allowed to be buried on Svalbard — and if you are gravely ill, they fly you to Oslo or Tromso for medical care. Fortunately, there is a vaccine for diphtheria – though it is unlikely one exists for Spanish flu – and there were reports several years ago that the United Nations was destroying over 90% of its smallpox vaccine in storage due to budgetary and space constraints.
There is a very lively Facebook group called “One Health Approaches” that many practitioners and researchers can benefit from following. There seems to be a lot going on in Africa.
In her video talk show/podcast with me (see https://youtu.be/nusQpND1F5U) Ann Swidler gives a lot of credit to George W. Bush for making medication affordable in Africa for HIV/AIDS. That is not only altruistic, but also a sensible measure of national security. The lesson for a world grappling with Covid-19, is that international cooperation is essential. Viruses do not stop at borders, hence no one is truly safe until we are all safe. The essential plan is: Early detection and early intervention!
A Measles Outbreak in Malaysia
‘A death trap’: Measles blamed in Malaysia indigenous deaths
Measles is one of the most infectious diseases, but it can be subdued with the widespread practice of vaccination. Unfortunately, there are new outbreaks in places where vaccination campaigns have lagged. Some 15 indigenous people from a marginalised population in Malaysia, the Batek group, died in six weeks in 2019, with scores more in hospital.
by Chris Humphrey,19 Jun 2019
Excerpts:
The Batek are among the most marginalised tribes within the Orang Asli, struggling to survive as the forest they live in is cut down for timber and replaced with plantations.
“The marginalisation of the Orang Asli has left them in abject poverty,” said Alberto Gomes, emeritus professor at La Trobe University in Melbourne who has spent 40 years researching the indigenous community.
“They’ve lost their means of production and survival and been robbed of their cultural autonomy.”
In a statement on Monday, Malaysia’s health ministry said tests showed that 37 of the 112 people who had fallen sick had been infected with measles. Three had died from the disease, including a severely malnourished two-and-a-half-year-old child who had developed pneumonia, a complication from measles, and died at the weekend.
15 Free Online Health Courses
The Global One Health initiative has launched a collection of 15 online courses that are being offered under the online Canvas Network. 12 are currently live and accepting new students:
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i.e.
1. Foundations of evidence-based practice in healthcare
2. Biology and management of weeds and invasive plants
3. Environmental public health
4. Media writing and editing
5. Fundamentals of pharmacology
6. Farm to table food safety
7. Introduction to the science of cancer
8. Molecular epidemiology
9. Life on earth: biomes, climates, ecology, and evolution
10. Introduction to pharmacy
11. Earths environment: soil, water and air
12. Energy and earth: fossil fuels, alternative and renewal energy
These courses are free and open to the public and cover aspects of agriculture, human biology, veterinary medicine and public health.
The collection can be found online here: https://www.canvas.net/browse/osu/global-one-health
Interested in the latest travel health recommendations Check out the CDC Yellow Book, Health Information fort International Travel. to answer your patients’, employees’, or your own travel health questions.
The Yellow Book offers readers current U.S. government travel health guidelines, including pre-travel vaccine recommendations, destination-specific health advice, and easy-to-reference maps, tables, and charts.
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https://wwwnc.cdc.gov/travel/page/yellowbook-home-2014?deliveryName=USCDC_1164-DM6015
News: the Guelph One Health Institute
Tackling some of humanity’s most pressing health problems is the purpose of a new research and teaching institute being launched at the University of Guelph (U of G).
One Health has long been promoted at U of G as an interdisciplinary approach to promoting health and curbing infectious diseases.
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Read the full article here: https://news.uoguelph.ca/2019/06/new-institute-at-u-of-g-to-focus-on-one-health/
Glad the UN is promoting ‘One Health’
The global ‘One Health’ concerns have long been knocking the doors of our present civilization. It needs immediate attention and concrete action without social, political,demographic and subject bias. A great and timely initiative by the UN.
Makerere University students adopt One Health approach
This is very effective approach in term of resource utilization. It also increase specialisation among fields. Which is keep for innovations.
Makerere University in Uganda has been involved in one health approach with student led initiatives and we have registered successes. For example medical camp, which formally used to for college of health sciences only now has veterinary included. And communities appreciate
Drastic measures are required to slow climate change
In our group the orientation of research on AMR is one health approach. All our research project proposals center on this theme.
As far as bacteria are concerned the diversity known to us too less. All our assumptions are based on few studies. This needs more depth .
With regard to measures of mitigation of slowing down climate change.
1. Are we ready to give rest to all vehicles at least once in a week?
2. Leaving aside diabetics are we ready to skip meals in toto for one day in a week? . If we do it is going to have telling impact on so many aspects.
We are all connected, so let’s act that way
We need to own the policy making positions and keep on influencing those already there, towards healthier interconnectedness we all are part of.
How the DRC’s Ebola Crisis has Led to Children Dying from Measles
Forty-five years ago, the World Health Organisation launched the Expanded Programme on Immunisation. It covered six diseases – measles, tuberculosis, polio, diphtheria, pertussis and tetanus. Since then, anti-measles vaccines have been distributed to millions of children across the world, leading to a massive reduction in illness and death. For example, between 2000 and 2017, it was estimated that global deaths from measles had reduced by about 80% due to vaccination.
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Success in the fight against measles is down to the delivery of at least two doses of vaccines to about 95% of children in the world. Vaccination is critical to preventing the disease because there’s no treatment for measles. During an outbreak, measles mainly affects unvaccinated children, but also adults who have never been vaccinated. The measles virus spreads when patients cough or sneeze, and remains active in the environment for several hours. The symptoms include high fever, dry cough, runny nose, inflamed eyes and skin rash.
The global measles elimination target was set to be achieved by 2020. Sadly, this target is increasingly looking unattainable. There’s been such a deterioration in vaccine reach that this year the World Health Organisation declared refusal or delay in agreeing to be vaccinated (vaccine hesitancy) as one of the top ten threats to global health. Hotspots include Ethiopia, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Madagascar and Sudan.
The Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) is on that list too, due to the Ebola crisis in parts of the country, which has fuelled a measles outbreak of unimaginable proportions.
The main reason for this is that healthcare resources have been diverted to deal with the Ebola outbreak, which still hasn’t been brought under control. As a result, people don’t have access to routine healthcare such as vaccination programmes.
A combination of factors – increased violence, growing mistrust towards medical teams in the wake of the Ebola outbreak as well as the diversion of resources to deal with Ebola – have resulted in reduced vaccination coverage in general. When measles vaccination coverage is low, the disease outbreak is always imminent.
Ebola and measles
How could an Ebola outbreak fuel a measles outbreak?
The most recent Ebola outbreak in the DRC was declared in August 2018. Despite the Ebola response teams in the country having more advanced tools and prior experience relative to previous outbreaks, new cases continue to be reported.
Community mistrust towards the outbreak response team has been cited as one of the challenges. Another is the high levels of insecurity due to battles between the army and armed groups. This has affected access to health services by communities.
In addition, resources – including human resources – have been diverted from routine services, such as vaccination programmes, to the Ebola response task.
According to the latest measles surveillance data from the World Health Organisation, new cases of measles rose by 300% in the first four months of this year. Across Africa, the number of cases rose by 700%.
And, according to Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF), between January and May 2019, more than 1,500 measles-related deaths were officially recorded in the DRC. Numbers like this would be considered unimaginable in any other country outside Africa.
Compare these figures with the US, where in the first four months of this year 704 cases – not deaths – of measles were reported, according to the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention.
What next
A massive response to the measles outbreak in the DRC is currently underway.
A key step to any disease outbreak is an establishment of strong partnerships to mobilise resources and coordinate the response. The DRC’s Ministry of Health has received considerable support from several partners, among them, the World Health Organisation.
The response plan has included setting up emergency response strategies, strengthening surveillance, investigations and preparedness response. Given that safe and effective vaccines against measles are available, the ultimate success of the response team will depend on the ability to supply and administer these lifesaving interventions to all those who need them.
To achieve this, the MSF is appealing for a massive and urgent mobilisation of national and international partners.
A key lesson must be learnt from the loss of thousands of children’s lives in the DRC due to measles. Vaccine programmes in Africa are vulnerable to crises, yet, these immunisation programmes are a key strategy to reducing infant mortality. African leaders have endorsed the regional immunisation strategic plan, in recognition of the vaccination benefits. But they need to go further: they must urgently develop effective policies that can mitigate the negative effects of crises on vaccination programmes in the future.
Viruses travel across species. Don’t feed the monkeys. They may bite. Don’t let your dog or cat sleep in bed with you. (Actually, about half of all pet owners do.)
Brilliant that Harvard is leading the way in this new inter-disciplinary approach. One Health integrates research from epidemiology, veterinary medicine, pharmacology, and environmental medicine — because our bodies integrate those phenomena too.
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https://www.momanyink.com/why-some-havard-medical-students-are-starting-veterinary-rotations/?fbclid=IwAR0AU3W_Kq5Ipy62cWDPEBrmWs8gzoXxHJioCKMlIAQR9y8xSVqs7aO0CXI
Zoonotic Diseases that Can be Transmitted to Humans
Amy Kempainen LeBoeuf shared a post about Leptospirosis, the most widespread zoonotic disease in the world. It is an infectious bacterial disease that occurs in rodents, dogs, and other mammals and can be transmitted to humans. Its presence in the Republic of Korea poses a potential threat to the people living there. This poster advises Us military personnel in particular.
Armed Forces Health Surveillance Branch-AFHSB
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https://www.facebook.com/AFHSBPAGE/?__tn__=%2CdkCH-R-R&eid=ARDvSLENr-ep8HlWS3O0aaUUGyNBjgqxg2LzPIoXvPeQHzJBOIdp8d58IEYyBlZAPUnPtjfaj9WJTS7v&hc_ref=ARRf1uoltzejQnIPlJTNeBQAirSHtI9L0FgfKFuc0hR7GS39yum1qCCN30l1fLJ046w&fref=nf&hc_location=group
Announcing a Syposium on One Health-Bactierial Resistance. In Brazil, Oct 6-9, 2019 in maceió, alagoas,
Sociedade Brasileira de Microbiologia
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https://www.facebook.com/AFHSBPAGE/?__tn__=%2CdkCH-R-R&eid=ARDvSLENr-ep8HlWS3O0aaUUGyNBjgqxg2LzPIoXvPeQHzJBOIdp8d58IEYyBlZAPUnPtjfaj9WJTS7v&hc_ref=ARRf1uoltzejQnIPlJTNeBQAirSHtI9L0FgfKFuc0hR7GS39yum1qCCN30l1fLJ046w&fref=nf&hc_location=group
Flies in Hospitals are Full of Antibiotic-Resistant Bacteria
A new study in Great Britain found that nine in ten insects caught in seven hospitals harbored dangerous bacteria, much of which was found to be resistant to antibiotics. The researchers found 86 bacterial strains on the exoskeletons and inside the insects, including many that can infect humans. Enterobacteriaceae, a group that includes E. coli, made up 41 percent of the strains while Bacillus bacteria, including some that cause food poisoning, made up 24 percent. Staphylococci, including the nasty bug S. aureus which causes skin, bone infections and pneumonia, made up 19 percent.
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Flies aren’t the only things that can transmit bugs around hospitals. Studies have found that neckties worn by doctors can be a source of infection. But the biggest bug transmitter is something most people have been taught since toddlerhood to keep clean: their hands.
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/hospital-flies-are-full-antibiotic-resitant-bacteria-180972487/?utm_source=facebook.com&utm_medium=socialmedia&fbclid=IwAR3zpxrLV6bVLr4dVRyoZBIk6uJ8lo1Un4PwB7ieav_1J6w_01c4pCJsn_0
First Getah virus infection confirmed in a horse in China
Samples taken when the horse suddenly developed a fever confirmed the presence of the mosquito-borne virus, which was first isolated in 1955 in Malaysia.There is no effective antiviral treatment for horses with the infection. Getah virus is capable of infecting humans and many other mammals.
Cases in horses have been reported in Japan and India. The virus has been responsible for six major outbreaks among racehorses, causing huge economic losses. The virus has since been identified in mosquitoes, pigs, foxes, and cattle, with a wide geographical distribution across the country. However, it has not been detected in horses until now.
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https://www.horsetalk.co.nz/2019/06/22/first-getah-virus-horse-china/?fbclid=IwAR0QTeShoLAukMcepsrezGLAGqAQ0ph9tN5KHqbv9E2lXyZXhYsOy7_gsI0
“Honeybees infect wild bumblebees through shared flowers”
A newly published paper shows that honeybees leave RNA viruses on the flowers they visit which can then be transmitted to wild bumblebees. This has a negative impact on the health of the wild bumblebee populations and may be contributing to the declines of those populations.
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Link to the study: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article… – The Mad Virologist
https://eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2019-06/uov-hiw062419.php?fbclid=IwAR3PEN_mK7gEQkaWg-QkDwq_WDG6OA-FToHAL8qsM7fuYdVfLRFonjkIyp0#.XRX-QOI6OXA.facebook
Managing the Risk and Impact of Future Epidemics: Options for Public-Private Cooperation
The World Economic Forum report aims to start a dialogue between the private sector, the international community and the leaders who will form collaborations.
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https://www.weforum.org/reports/managing-risk-and-impact-future-epidemics-options-public-private-cooperation
Antimicrobial Resistance: Tackling the Gap in R&D Resources with Pull Incentives
World Economic Forum presented:
“Antimicrobial Resistance: Tackling the Gap in R&D Resources with Pull Incentives – in collaboration with Wellcome Trust.”
Not enough new antibiotics are in development to guarantee that we can continue to treat infections. Current market conditions will not incentivise the investment necessary to restock the antibiotic pipeline, and “push” funding that directly supports early-stage R&D is insufficient to create a functioning market for the future.
This briefing outlines why pull incentives are necessary; some of the key principles they need to fulfill; and next steps towards implementing or piloting a pull incentive.
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https://www.weforum.org/reports/antimicrobial-resistance-tackling-the-gap-in-r-d-resources-with-pull-incentives-in-collaboration-with-wellcome-trust
“Outbreak Readiness and Business Impact: Protecting Lives and Livelihoods across the Global Economy”
In the coming decades, pandemics will cause average annual economic losses of 0.7% of global GDP – a threat similar in scale to that estimated for climate change.
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https://www.weforum.org/whitepapers/outbreak-readiness-and-business-impact-protecting-lives-and-livelihoods-across-the-global-economy
This is a clear, even entertaining brochure with interesting drawings- covering everything a normal person would benefit from knowing about epidemics, including Zika, Yellow Fever, and such matters s the safety of vaccines. You can download it or just read parts here and there. Link below:
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https://www.who.int/emergencies/diseases/managing-epidemics-interactive.pdf
“WHO flags critical funding gap, calls for political parties to join fight against Ebola”
The Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of the Congo will only end with bipartisan political cooperation and community ownership, according to the World Health Organization’s Director-General, Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus. WHO’s funding needs for the response are US$98 million, of which US$44 million have been received, leaving a gap of US$54 million. The funding shortfall is immediate and critical: if the funds are not received, WHO will be unable to sustain the response at the current scale. Another clear need was better use of the Ebola vaccine, which is a very effective tool if provided to all people who have been in contact with a confirmed case.
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Vaccination is being stepped up and offered to more people, including pregnant and breastfeeding women, and children over six months old (rather than only 1 year and older). https://www.who.int/news-room/detail/19-06-2019-who-flags-critical-funding-gap-calls-for-political-parties-to-join-fight-against-ebola
June 19, 2019
Emergency Manager’s Weekly Report (A Facebook Group @emweeklyreport) posts this announcement: of an e-learning event:
“Social Media Monitoring in Public Health Emergencies Webinar” on July 24, 1 pm – 2:15 pm.
For the second year in a row, NACCHO is pleased to host a multi-part webinar series to help local health departments build capacity to engage in public health communication. Hosted by the National Association of County and City Health Officials and presented by the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene, “Social Media Monitoring in Public Health Emergencies“ webinar will help participants learn how to use social media to monitor and respond to the spread of (mis)information during public health emergencies.
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http://essentialelements.naccho.org/event/2019-public-health-communications-webinar-series-social-media-monitoring-in-public-health-emergencies
Really! How interesting