global pandemic
Argentine president's test shows Covid-19; awaits confirmation
Argentine President Alberto Fernández says he had an initial positive test for COVID-19, despite having been vaccinated in January.
Fernández sent a tweet late Friday saying took a quick antigen test for the virus after feeling a headache and experiencing a fever of 37.3 Celsius (99.1 Fahrenheit). He said he otherwise has light symptoms, is isolating and is "physically well."
He said he is awaiting a confirmation of the result using a more rigorous PCR test.
Also read: Global Covid cases top 130 million
The president received a dose of the Sputnik V vaccine on Jan. 21 and a second dose a few days later.
The Russian Gamaleya Institute that produced the vaccine tweeted that it wished the president a quick recovery, and said the vaccine has a 91.6% rate of effectiveness against infection and 100% against critical cases.
Also read: Incumbent president concedes defeat in Argentine presidential election
"If the infection is confirmed and occurred, the vaccination assures a rapid recovery without severe symptoms," it said.
Argentina recently tightened border restrictions due to an upsurge in cases. The nation of some 45 million people has recorded nearly 2.4 million infections, with 56,000 deaths. It has administed more than 4 million doses of vaccine against the disease.
World trade primed for strong but uneven recovery after Covid-19 shock: WTO
Prospects for a quick recovery in world trade have improved as merchandise trade expanded more rapidly than expected in the second half of last year.
According to new estimates from the WTO, the volume of world merchandise trade is expected to increase by 8.0 percent in 2021 after having fallen 5.3 percent in 2020, continuing its rebound from the pandemic-induced collapse that bottomed out in the second quarter of last year.
Trade growth should then slow to 4.0 percent in 2022, and the effects of the pandemic will continue to be felt as this pace of expansion would still leave trade below its pre-pandemic trend.
The relatively positive short-term outlook for global trade is marred by regional disparities, continued weakness in services trade, and lagging vaccination timetables, particularly in poor countries. COVID-19 continues to pose the greatest threat to the outlook for trade, as new waves of infection could easily undermine any hoped-for recovery.
"The strong rebound in global trade since the middle of last year has helped soften the blow of the pandemic for people, businesses, and economies," WTO Director-General Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala said.
Also read: Okonjo-Iweala becomes first woman, African to lead WTO
"Keeping international markets open will be essential for economies to recover from this crisis and a rapid, global and equitable vaccine roll-out is a prerequisite for the strong and sustained recovery we all need."
"Ramping up production of vaccines will allow businesses and schools to reopen more quickly and help economies get back on their feet. But as long as large numbers of people and countries are excluded from sufficient vaccine access, it will stifle growth, and risk reversing the health and economic recovery worldwide," she said.
The Director-General added that trade through value chains has helped countries access food and essential medical supplies during the crisis.
"Manufacturing vaccines requires inputs from many different countries. One leading COVID-19 vaccine includes 280 components sourced from 19 different countries," she said. "Trade restrictions make it harder to ramp up production. The WTO has helped keep trade flowing during the crisis. Now, the international community must leverage the power of trade to expand access to life-saving vaccines."
Short-term risks to the forecast are firmly on the downside and centred on pandemic-related factors. These include insufficient production and distribution of vaccines, or the emergence of new, vaccine-resistant strains of COVID-19. Over the medium-to-long term, public debt and deficits could also weigh on economic growth and trade, particularly in highly indebted developing countries.
Also read: WTO, WHO chiefs for opening trade to ensure vital medical supplies
The forecast illustrates two alternative scenarios for trade. In the upside scenario, vaccine production and dissemination would accelerate, allowing containment measures to be relaxed sooner. This would be expected to add about 1 percentage point to world GDP growth and about 2.5 percentage points to world merchandise trade volume growth in 2021. Trade would return to its pre-pandemic trend by the fourth quarter of 2021. In the downside scenario, vaccine production does not keep up with demand and/or new variants of the virus emerge against which vaccines are less effective. Such an outcome could shave 1 percentage point off of global GDP growth in 2021 and lower trade growth by nearly 2 percentage points.
For the whole of 2020, merchandise trade was down 5.3 percent. This drop is smaller than the 9.2 percent decline foreseen in the WTO's previous forecast in October 2020. The better than expected performance towards the end of the year can partly be explained by the announcement of new COVID-19 vaccines in November, which contributed to improved business and consumer confidence.
The volume of world merchandise trade plunged 15.0 percent year-on-year in the second quarter of 2020 (revised up from -17.3 percent in October) as countries around the world imposed lockdowns and travel restrictions to limit the spread of COVID-19. Lockdowns were eased in the second half of the year as infection rates came down, allowing goods shipments to surge back to near 2019 levels by the fourth quarter.
The impact of the pandemic on merchandise trade volumes differed across regions in 2020, with most regions recording large declines in both exports and imports. Asia was the sole exception, with export volumes up 0.3 percent and import volumes down a modest 1.3 percent. Regions rich in natural resources saw the largest declines in imports, including Africa (-8.8 percent), South America (-9.3 percent) and the Middle East (-11.3 percent), probably due to reduced export revenues as oil prices fell around 35 percent. In comparison to other regions, the decline in North American imports was relatively small (-6.1 percent).
Also read: WTO, WCO chiefs pledge joint efforts to facilitate trade in essential goods
In 2021, demand for traded goods will be driven by North America (11.4 percent) thanks to large fiscal injections in the United States, which should also stimulate other economies through the trade channel. Europe and South America will both see import growth of around 8 percent, while other regions will register smaller increases.
Much of global import demand will be met by Asia, exports from which are expected to grow by 8.4 percent in 2021. European exports will increase nearly as much (8.3 percent), while shipments from North America will see a smaller rise (7.7 percent). Strong forecasts for export growth in Africa (8.1 percent) and the Middle East (12.4 percent) depend on travel expenditures picking up over the course of the year, which would strengthen demand for oil. Meanwhile, South America will see weaker export growth (3.2 percent), as will the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS), including certain former and associate Members (4.4 percent).
Tackling Covid-19: Ambassador Miller lauds epidemiologists, public health experts
US Ambassador to Bangladesh Earl Miller on Wednesday praised the epidemiologists and public health experts who continue to serve as Bangladesh’s frontline of defense to combat the COVID-19 pandemic.
“The pandemic has taught us many things. One of those things is policy and actions are only as effective as the science and data they are built upon,” he said.
Miller said they can promote mask wearing and social distancing because they know the science and data tells them it works.
“We can promote vaccination because the data from the vaccine trials and post vaccination surveillance tells us the vaccines are safe and effective. None of this is possible without epidemiologists and public health experts,” he said.
The US Ambassador inaugurated the first “Bangladesh Congress on Epidemiology and Public Health” and the two-day conference (Wednesday-Thursday) includes in-person and online sessions sharing experiences and scientific lessons from Bangladesh about COVID-19; establishing a global network of public health experts to apply COVID-19 lessons to prepare for future pandemics and outbreaks; and building support for expanding the number of epidemiologists and public health experts in Bangladesh.
Also read: Will work together with Bangladesh, global partners against Covid-19 pandemic: Miller
The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) is partnering with the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, the Institute of Epidemiology Disease Control and Research (IEDCR), and the Epidemiology Association of Bangladesh to sponsor this first-ever national conference focused on the vital roles field epidemiology and public health play in saving lives and keeping people healthy from serious diseases in Bangladesh and across the world during the COVID-19 pandemic.
World leaders call for pandemic treaty, but short on details
More than 20 heads of government and global agencies called in a commentary published Tuesday for an international treaty for pandemic preparedness that they say will protect future generations in the wake of COVID-19.
But there were few details to explain how such an agreement might actually compel countries to act more cooperatively.
World Health Organization Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus and leaders including Prime Minister Boris Johnson of Britain, Premier Mario Draghi of Italy and President Paul Kagame of Rwanda proposed "a renewed collective commitment" to reinforce preparedness and response systems by leveraging the U.N. health agency's constitution.
"The world cannot afford to wait until the pandemic is over to start planning for the next one," Tedros said during a news conference. He said the treaty would provide "a framework for international cooperation and solidarity" and address issues like surveillance systems and responding to outbreaks.
International regulations governing health and implemented by WHO already exist — and can be disregarded by countries with few consequences. Despite an obligation for nations to share critical epidemic data and materials quickly with WHO, for example, China declined to do so when the coronavirus first broke out.
And with no enforcement powers, WHO officials had little means of compelling them to share details, an AP investigation last year found.
Steven Solomon, WHO's principal legal officer, said the proposed pandemic treaty would need to be ratified by lawmakers in the participating countries.
"Specifics about enforcement will be up to member states to decide on," Solomon said.
European Council President Charles Michel first laid out the idea of a pandemic treaty at the U.N. General Assembly in December. Joining Tedros at Tuesday's briefing, Michel said the global community needs to "build a pandemic defense for future generations that extends far beyond today's crisis. For this, we must translate the political will into concrete actions."
Gian Luca Burci, a former WHO legal counsel who is now a professor at the Graduate Institute of international affairs in Geneva, described the proposal as an attempted "big fix" involving information sharing, preparedness and response, saying the concept is "like a Christmas tree, frankly."
"But to me, the risk is that it diverts attention from the tool that we have" — WHO's existing International Health Regulations, Burci said recently. He said his fear was those regulations would get short shrift and receive "cosmetic improvements, but fundamentally remain a weak instrument."
Although the 25 signatories of the commentary called for "solidarity," and greater "societal commitment," there was no indication any country would soon change its own approach to responding to the pandemic. China, Russia and the United States didn't join in signing the statement.
WHO legal officer Solomon said the pandemic treaty might also address issues such as the sharing of vaccine technology and vaccine supplies, but gave no indication how that might happen. Despite WHO's calls for patents to be waived during the pandemic, rich countries have continued to oppose efforts by poor countries to compel them to share vaccine manufacturing technology.
Tedros pleaded with rich countries last week to immediately donate 10 million COVID-19 vaccines so that immunization campaigns could start in all countries within the first 100 days of the year. Not a single country has yet publicly offered to share its vaccines immediately. Of the more than 459 million vaccines administered globally, the majority have been in just 10 countries — and 28% in just one. WHO didn't identify the countries.
Covid-19: Hasina seeks global action to address liquidity crisis, debt burdens
Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina on Monday underscored the need for having ambitious and concentrated global action plans to address the liquidity crisis and sovereign debt burdens now and during the post-Covid-19 era.
The Prime Minister said this in a video message delivered at the ‘Financing for Development in the Era of Covid-19 and Beyond Initiative: International Debt Architecture and Liquidity’.
Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, Jamaican Prime Minister Andrew Holness and UN Secretary-General António Guterres convened the meeting of world leaders to urge the international community to take additional and urgent action to ensure a robust economic recovery.
The high-level virtual meeting aims to underscore the urgency of the need for more audacious and concrete action to provide liquidity and address debt vulnerability.
Moderated by BBC news anchor Laura Trevelyan, the meeting of heads of state and government featured opening remarks by António Guterres, Justin Trudeau and Andrew Holness.
Sheikh Hasina said a strong leadership is needed from the G7, G20 and OECD (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development) countries.
Also read: PM Hasina leads from front in battle against pandemic: Envoy
She said developed countries, MDBs (Multilateral development banks) and IFIs (International financial institutions) should scale up liquidity for vulnerable countries, such as large and new ‘Special Drawing Rights’ allocation.
“International debt architecture also needs to be revisited for suitable reform,” she said.
The Prime Minister also put emphasis on fulfilling the 0.7% ODA commitment of the developed countries. “They should also expand fiscal stimulus, concessional finance and debt relief measures for vulnerable economies.”
Finally, Sheikh Hasina said, there must be new international support measures for the graduating LDCs, at least till 2030, commensurate with the SDGs.
She said more than one year has elapsed since the outbreak of Covid-19 and the world is still struggling to overcome the socio-economic challenges posed by it. “The UN has estimated that the global economy is expected to lose nearly 8.5 trillion dollars in output over the next two years.”
Talking about Bangladesh, she said the government adopted comprehensive plans to minimise the impact of the pandemic on the lives and livelihoods of people.
Also read: Hasina to South Asian leaders: Work together for common prosperity
“We immediately rolled out a stimulus package worth more than 1.24 trillion taka equivalent to USD 14.58 billion, which is around 4.44% of our GDP.”
Hasina mentioned that the government has provided adequate liquidity and loanable funds in the market to ensure uninterrupted business operation. “We undertook supportive policy interventions to minimise shocks on foreign exchange market, foreign trade and finance, remittances, external borrowing etc.”
Despite the pandemic, the Prime Minister said, Bangladesh has still been comfortably servicing its debt with the reputation of ‘non-defaulting party’ because of the prudent borrowing policy of the government.
According to the UN website, the Covid-19 pandemic, which has claimed more than 2.6 million lives and resulted in more than 120 million confirmed cases to date, has gone beyond a health and humanitarian crisis to also become an unprecedented global development emergency.
Unprecedented action over the last year has helped control the spread of the deadly virus and mitigate its socioeconomic impact.
These emergency policies succeeded in flattening the curve of contagion and saved lives, but they also resulted in a 4.3% drop in global GDP, the first increase in extreme poverty since 1998, and the equivalent of 255 million jobs being lost in 2020.
Also read: Bangladesh achieved enviable successes in socio-economic indicators: PM Hasina
Covid-19-related economic shocks have already caused rating agencies to downgrade the credit worthiness of 42 countries since the start of the pandemic, including six developed countries, 27 emerging market economies, and nine least developed and low-income countries.
The current economic situation has also exacerbated inequalities between and within countries that pose significant threats to global efforts to build back better. The risk of a global sovereign debt crisis, in addition to the fourth global debt wave that the world entered prior to the pandemic, is now greater than ever.
Following a high-level roundtable with IMF Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva, World Bank Group President David Malpass, OECD Secretary-General Ángel Gurría and WTO Director-General Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, approximately 20 heads of state and government will recommend measures to overcome debt and liquidity problems to help the world recover better and invest in the SDGs.
WHO report says animals likely source of COVID
A joint WHO-China study on the origins of COVID-19 says that transmission of the virus from bats to humans through another animal is the most likely scenario and that a lab leak is “extremely unlikely,” according to a draft copy obtained by The Associated Press.
The findings offer little new insight into how the virus first emerged and leave many questions unanswered, though that was as expected. But the report does provide more detail on the reasoning behind the researchers’ conclusions. The team proposed further research in every area except the lab leak hypothesis.
The report, which is expected to be made public Tuesday, is being closely watched since discovering the origins of the virus could help scientists prevent future pandemics — but it’s also extremely sensitive since China bristles at any suggestion that it is to blame for the current one. Repeated delays in the report’s release have raised questions about whether the Chinese side was trying to skew its conclusions.
“We’ve got real concerns about the methodology and the process that went into that report, including the fact that the government in Beijing apparently helped to write it,” U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a recent CNN interview.
China rejected that criticism Monday.
“The U.S. has been speaking out on the report. By doing this, isn’t the U.S. trying to exert political pressure on the members of the WHO expert group?” asked Foreign Ministry spokesperson Zhao Lijian.
The report is based largely on a visit by a WHO team of international experts to Wuhan, the Chinese city where COVID-19 was first detected, from mid-January to mid-February.
Also read: COVID-19 not necessarily crossed from animals into humans in Wuhan: WHO expert
In the draft obtained by the AP, the researchers listed four scenarios in order of likelihood for the emergence of the coronavirus named SARS-CoV-2. Topping the list was transmission from bats through another animal, which they said was likely to very likely. They evaluated direct spread from bats to humans as likely, and said that spread through “cold-chain” food products was possible but not likely.
Bats are known to carry coronaviruses and, in fact, the closest relative of the virus that causes COVID-19 has been found in bats. However, the report says that “the evolutionary distance between these bat viruses and SARS-CoV-2 is estimated to be several decades, suggesting a missing link.”
It said highly similar viruses have been found in pangolins, which are another kind of mammal, but also noted that mink and cats are susceptible to the COVID-19 virus, suggesting they could be carriers, too.
The AP received the draft copy on Monday from a Geneva-based diplomat from a WHO-member country. It wasn’t clear whether the report might still be changed prior to release, though the diplomat said it was the final version. A second diplomat confirmed getting the report too. Both refused to be identified because they were not authorized to release it ahead of publication.
WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus acknowledged that he had received the report over the weekend and said it would be formally presented Tuesday.
“We will read the report and discuss, digest its content and next steps with member states,” Tedros told a news conference in Geneva. “But as I have said, all hypotheses are on the table and warrant complete and further studies from what I have seen so far.”
Also read: WHO expert skeptical coronavirus leaked from controversial Wuhan lab
He declined to comment on whether political pressure had influenced the report.
The draft report is inconclusive on whether the outbreak started at a Wuhan seafood market that had one of the earliest clusters of cases in December 2019.
The discovery of other cases before the Huanan market outbreak suggests it may have started elsewhere. But the report notes there could have been milder cases that went undetected and that could be a link between the market and earlier cases.
“No firm conclusion therefore about the role of the Huanan market in the origin of the outbreak, or how the infection was introduced into the market, can currently be drawn,” the report said.
The market was an early suspect because some stalls sold a range of animals — and some wondered if they had brought the new virus to Wuhan. The report noted that a range of animal products — including everything from bamboo rats to deer, often frozen — were sold at the market, as were live crocodiles.
As the pandemic spread globally, China found samples of the virus on the packaging of frozen food coming into the country and, in some cases, have tracked localized outbreaks to them.
The report said that the cold chain, as it is known, can be a driver of long-distance virus spread but was skeptical it could have triggered the outbreak. The report says the risk is lower than through human-to-human respiratory infection, and most experts agree.
Also read: What the WHO coronavirus experts learned in Wuhan
“While there is some evidence for possible reintroduction of SARS-CoV-2 through handling of imported contaminated frozen products in China since the initial pandemic wave, this would be extraordinary in 2019 where the virus was not widely circulating,” the study said.
The report cited several reasons for all but dismissing the possibility the virus escaped from a lab in Wuhan, a speculative theory that was suggested and promoted by former U.S. President Donald Trump among others.
It said such laboratory accidents are rare and the labs in Wuhan working on coronaviruses and vaccines are well-managed. It also noted that there is no record of viruses closely related to SARS-CoV-2 in any laboratory before December 2019 and that the risk of accidentally growing the virus was extremely low.
New variant may be behind Covid surge in Bangladesh: Experts
Amid a sudden upsurge in coronavirus cases, health experts fear that a highly transmissible variant of the deadly virus might have appeared in Bangladesh through mutations.
They think a comprehensive study and genome squeezing is necessary to examine whether the mutations have led to the new variant contributing to the upsurge in Covid cases in Bangladesh.
Meanwhile, a team of Bangladeshi researchers in collaboration with Monash University in Malaysia found that coronavirus mutated 4,604 times in Bangladesh from April to December last year.
Examining 371 genome sequences of the virus, they found 34 unique mutations in Bangladesh.
The researchers laid emphasis on conducting more research on the unique mutations as they think any of them can be deadlier and the cause of the recent spike in the virus cases.
Also read: Virus variants, vaccine inequity responsible for rising Covid caseload: WHO
Causes behind the fresh wave of COVID-19 in Bangladesh
Talking to UNB, noted virologist Nazrul Islam, a member of the national technical advisory committee formed to tackle Covid-19, said it seems that a fresh wave of the coronavirus has begun in the country.
Will work together with Bangladesh, global partners against Covid-19 pandemic: Miller
US Ambassador to Bangladesh Earl Miller on Tuesday said America continues to work closely with Bangladesh in the fight against COVID-19 noting that the two great nations, together with their global partners, will prevail against this pandemic.
He said they have provided over $73 million to support Bangladesh’s pandemic response and to date have sent 100 state-of-the art-U.S.-manufactured ventilators to treat critical patients.
Ambassador Miller also gave a shout-out to his alma mater, the University of Michigan: “Go Blue!”
The US virtually launched a webinar series linking medical universities in Bangladesh and the United States to share best practices in COVID-19 case management.
The two part-series contributes to the Strengthening Public Health Cooperation for a Safer Economy goal outlined in the September 30 high-level consultation between United States and Bangladesh, specifically by developing a Vision for Advancing the U.S.-Bangladesh Economic Partnership.
Tuesday’s webinar was organized via partnership between the Directorate General of Health Services of the Government of Bangladesh and the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), in collaboration with the Dhaka Medical College Hospital and Project ECHO, a platform for distant mentoring and learning managed by the University of New Mexico.
Also read: US committed to work with Bangladesh to end trafficking-in-persons: Miller
It is one of multiple capacity-building initiatives aimed at enhancing the knowledge and medical skills of doctors and other frontline workers in both public and private health facilities to improve the care given to COVID-19 patients and reduce and control the spread of the infection funded over the past year.
The programme is made possible through over $73 million in COVID-19 response assistance from U.S. government agencies, according to the US Embassy in Dhaka.
A year into pandemic, veterans halls 'barely hanging' on
Paul Guilbeault knew the writing was on the wall for the last Veterans of Foreign Wars post in this city south of Boston when businesses across Massachusetts were ordered to close as the coronavirus pandemic took hold last March.
Don’t use weather as a basis to relax COVID-19 control measures: WMO
The current onset of warmer temperatures in the northern hemisphere, should not be used as a trigger to relax measures to halt the spread of coronavirus, the UN weather agency cautioned on Thursday.