U.N. News: Leaders pledge ‘quantum leap’ towards fully funding COVID-19 vaccines and treatments
“Global leaders, including more than 30 heads of state and ministers, have underlined their commitment towards fast-tracking the development and production of COVID-19 tests, medicines, and vaccines that will be available for anyone, anywhere, who needs them. Following a virtual meeting on Thursday, they pledged to advocate for the $35 billion still required for the Access to COVID-19 Tools (ACT) Accelerator, to realize the goal of producing two billion vaccine doses, 245 million treatments, and 500 million tests. … The ACT-Accelerator was launched in April and so far has received $2.7 billion, or less than one-tenth of the necessary financing. The virtual gathering held on Thursday marked the inaugural meeting of its Facilitation Council. … The U.N. agency reported that more than 170 countries are now engaged in a COVID-19 Vaccine Facility [COVAX], one of four pillars under the accelerator. Ten vaccine candidates are currently being evaluated, nine of which are in clinical trials…” (9/10).

Additional coverage of the meeting and the ACT-Accelerator is available from CIDRAP News, Reuters, and VOA News.

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BBC News: Abortion: How do Trump and Biden’s policies compare?
“Abortion is arguably the most divisive issue in U.S. politics — and with the presidential candidates promising to either revoke national rights to abortion or take extra steps to safeguard it, the stakes have never been higher. With President Trump in the White House, anti-abortion activists are energized and Republican-controlled states have tightened restrictions. Yet public support for abortion rights is the highest in decades, according to the Pew Research Center, with 61% of people favoring legal access to the procedure — and that’s changed how Democrats talk about it. Let’s compare where the presidential candidates stand on the issue…” (9/9).

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USA TODAY: Fact check: White House didn’t fire pandemic response unit when it was disbanded in 2018
“…In May 2018, former national security adviser John Bolton restructured Trump’s National Security Council [NSC] and disbanded the global health unit. Its former head, Rear Adm. Timothy Ziemer, resigned from the administration and was not replaced. … Though the unit was disbanded, not all members of the team left. Some moved to other units in the NSC, like those focused on weapons of mass destruction and international organizations, per the Washington Post. … Based on our research, the claim that President Trump fired the ‘entire’ pandemic response team is PARTLY FALSE. The Directorate of Global Health Security and Biodefense was disbanded under Trump’s then-national security adviser John Bolton. But Trump didn’t fire its members. Some resigned, and others moved to different units on the National Security Council…” (Caldera, 9/10).

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Financial Times: AstraZeneca ‘still on track’ to submit Covid vaccine data before end of year
“AstraZeneca is still on target to submit data on its Covid-19 vaccine candidate to regulators before the end of the year, providing it can restart trials halted temporarily after a participant fell ill, the company’s chief executive has said…” (Neville, 9/10).

Additional coverage on efforts to develop a SARS-CoV-2 vaccine is available from POLITICO Magazine, Reuters (2), and TIME.

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The Guardian: Covid vaccine: ‘8,000 jumbo jets needed’ to deliver doses around world
“Shipping a coronavirus vaccine around the world will be the airline industry’s biggest ever challenge, requiring the equivalent of 8,000 jumbo jet planes to get a single dose to 7.8 billion people, according to the aviation industry. The International Air Transport Association warned of severe capacity constraints that could hamper efforts to get a vaccine out quickly around the globe. While drugmakers are racing to develop a vaccine and get it approved by regulators, the international aviation group is working with airlines, airports, health bodies, and pharmaceutical firms to draft an airlift plan…” (Kollewe, 9/10).

Additional coverage of the aviation industry’s efforts to prepare for vaccine distribution is available from EURACTIV.com and VOA News.

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New York Times: The Other Way Covid Will Kill: Hunger
“…As the global economy absorbs the most punishing reversal of fortunes since the Great Depression, hunger is on the rise. Those confronting potentially life-threatening levels of so-called food insecurity in the developing world are expected to nearly double this year to 265 million, according to the United Nations World Food Programme. Worldwide, the number of children younger than 5 caught in a state of so-called wasting … is likely to grow by nearly seven million this year, or 14 percent, according to a recent paper published in The Lancet, a medical journal. The largest numbers of vulnerable communities are concentrated in South Asia and Africa, especially in countries that are already confronting trouble, from military conflict and extreme poverty to climate-related afflictions like drought, flooding, and soil erosion…” (Goodman et al., 9/11).

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Al Jazeera: Coronavirus: Why are women paying a heavier price?
“…Women have shown better COVID-19 outcomes than men … But any such advantage is reversed when it comes to the social and economic effects of the pandemic; here the brunt falls heaviest on women. … As an example, more than 90 percent of the labor force in sub-Saharan Africa is composed of informal workers, most of whom are female, whose jobs are more at risk due to the pandemic, according to a World Bank report…” (Pietromarchi, 9/11).

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AFRICA

VOA News: Africa Sees Progress in Coronavirus Fight, but Also Setbacks (Powell, 9/10).

ASIA

AP: Study finds India missed early cases, lockdown was leaky (Ghosal, 9/11).

AP: Myanmar locks down parts of Yangon amid virus increase (Win/Peck, 9/10).

New York Times: From Asia to Africa, China Promotes Its Vaccines to Win Friends (Wee et al., 9/11).

EUROPE

AP: Russian schools open with classroom, cafeteria precautions (Golovkin, 9/11).

AP: COVID beds fill up as virus pressure builds in Marseille (Cole, 9/11).

BBC News: Coronavirus: France sets daily record with almost 10,000 new cases (9/10).

Financial Times: Public trust in vaccines rises in most of Europe, study says (Cookson, 9/10).

LATIN AMERICA

AP: Peru’s Indigenous turn to ancestral remedies to fight virus (Abd/Armario, 9/11).

AP: In Chile, life goes on for loved ones after COVID-19 (Vergara/Félix, 9/10).

Christian Science Monitor: Political cost of coronavirus? For Brazil’s Bolsonaro, not much (Ionova, 9/10).

New Humanitarian: How Colombia’s armed groups are exploiting COVID-19 to recruit children (Taylor, 9/10).

NORTH AMERICA

Axios: America’s vaccine pessimism (Owens, 9/10).

Financial Times: Covid vaccine becomes divisive issue in U.S. election campaign (Stacey/Kuchler, 9/11).

STAT: The lessons we’ve learned from the Covid-19 response, according to Anthony Fauci (Gopalakrishna, 9/10).

Vox: A third of Americans might refuse a Covid-19 vaccine. How screwed are we? (Resnick, 9/10).

Yahoo News: Exclusive: White House orders end to COVID-19 airport screenings for international travelers (Winter, 9/9).

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Devex: FCDO allows Save the Children to resume bidding on contracts
“The United Kingdom government is allowing Save the Children to resume bidding for government aid contracts after a sexual misconduct scandal saw the charity withdraw itself from the process more than two years ago. The charity, one of the largest in the U.K., has taken ‘significant steps’ to improve its safeguarding and now meets Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office standards, according to a statement from the department…” (Worley, 9/10).

Additional coverage of Save the Children’s resumption of bidding is available from The Guardian.

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AFP: Beirut port fire hits warehouse where food aid stored (Gamal-Gabriel/Amro, 9/10).

Al Jazeera: Sudan flood victims at risk of water-borne diseases (Morgan, 9/10).

Borgen Magazine: 3 Ways Global Allies Can Support Foreign Aid (Gonzales, 9/10).

Deutsche Welle: Now just free Africa of vaccine-derived poliovirus (Abbany, 9/10).

Devex: Q&A: Health care is the lynchpin to tackling our multiple global crises (9/11).

Devex: U.S. DFC board approves deal so ‘it doesn’t fall into Chinese hands’ (Saldinger, 9/11).

Devex: U.K. government publishes safeguarding strategy (Worley, 9/10).

Fox News: Coronavirus could reverse decades of progress on reducing child mortality, health agencies warn (Genovese, 9/10).

IPS: Preserving Food Security in Africa’s Urban Areas (Esipisu, 9/10).

Slate: Life on the COVID-19 Beat (Khamsi et al., 9/10).

U.N. News: Work to achieve a culture of peace amid COVID-19 upheaval: U.N. Secretary-General (9/10).

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Baltimore Sun: Can Americans trust any COVID-19 vaccine offered before Nov. 3?
Editorial Board (9/10).

Devex: Opinion: We lack an essential component to power COVID-19 response
Contributing authors from Global Health 50/50, African Population and Health Research Center, and International Center for Research on Women (9/10).

The Lancet: Global collaboration for health: rhetoric versus reality
Editorial Board (9/12).

New York Times: What if We Have to Wait Years for a Coronavirus Vaccine?
Spencer Bokat-Lindell, staff editor for the Opinion section at the New York Times (9/10).

New York Times: The Coronavirus Is Mutating, and That’s Fine (So Far)
Edward Holmes, evolutionary virologist at the University of Sydney (9/11).

STAT: ‘Hell has frozen over’: The pharmaceutical industry stands in for a politically impaired FDA
Russell Teagarden, member of the New York University School of Medicine’s Working Group on Compassionate Use and Pre-Approval Access, and Arthur L. Caplan, professor of bioethics and founding head of New York University School of Medicine’s Division of Medical Ethics (9/10).

The Telegraph: Polio provides the road map for tackling pandemic and food security
Marco Ferroni, chair of the CGIAR System Board (9/10).

Washington Post: Trump’s lies about the pandemic were a grave dereliction of duty
Editorial Board (9/10).

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The Conversation: More dengue fever and less malaria — mosquito control strategies may need to shift as Africa heats up
Jason Rasgon, professor of entomology and disease epidemiology at Pennsylvania State University (9/9).

Devex: Opinion: Satellite imagery — global data for global goals
Nikhil Seth, assistant secretary-general and executive director at the United Nations Institute for Training and Research (9/7).

Devex: Opinion: Doing development democratically
Alex Thier, senior democracy fellow at Freedom House and senior adviser at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (9/8).

Project Syndicate: Winning the Fight Against Cholera
Frew Benson, chief director of the National Department of Health of South Africa and chair of the Global Task Force on Cholera Control’s Steering Committee (9/8).

Project Syndicate: The Neglected Water and Sanitation Crisis
Kevin Rudd, former prime minister of Australia, president of the Asia Society Policy Institute, and high-level chair of the United Nations Global Partnership on Sanitation and Water for All (9/9).

Project Syndicate: How to Save Nine Million Children
Samir Saha, head of the diagnostic division of microbiology at the Bangladesh Institute of Child Health and executive director of the Child Health Research Foundation (9/11).

The Telegraph: Let’s reboot our global food systems
Agnes Kalibata, U.N. special envoy to the 2021 Food Systems Summit (9/8).

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Brookings Institution’s “Future Development”: USAID’s draft policy retrenches on gender equality
George Ingram, senior fellow for Global Economy and Development at Brookings, and Nora O’Connell, vice president for Public Policy and Advocacy at Save the Children, discuss the draft revision of USAID’s policy on gender equality and women’s empowerment, writing, “As USAID looks ahead to what’s over the horizon in a post-COVID world, having a strong, technical, forward-looking gender policy is vital. Unfortunately, the current draft will undermine USAID’s ability to meet [gender equality challenges]” (9/10).

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Médecins Sans Frontières: Meeting regular health needs amid the COVID-19 pandemic in Pakistan (9/8).

ONE Campaign: How COVID-19 is threatening girls’ education
Arielle Witter, social and editorial coordinator at the ONE Campaign (9/10).

ONE Campaign: ‘There’s a deficit in leadership’ in response to COVID-19 (9/10).

Science: An ethical framework for global vaccine allocation
Ezekiel J. Emanuel, professor in the Department of Medical Ethics and Health Policy at the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania, and colleagues (9/11).

WHO Africa: Ebola response bolsters Uganda’s COVID-19 fight (9/10).

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USAID: COVID-19 Global Response — Fact Sheet #9 FY20
This fact sheet provides details on U.S. efforts to address COVID-19 globally, highlighting key developments in the U.S. response, the U.S. global response strategy, and regional summaries (9/9).

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HHS: Trump Administration Takes Action to Expand Access to COVID-19 Vaccines
“[Wednesday], under the leadership of President Trump, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), through the Assistant Secretary for Health, issued guidance under the Public Readiness and Emergency Preparedness Act (PREP Act) to expand access to safe and effective COVID-19 vaccines when they are made available. This guidance authorizes state-licensed pharmacists to order and administer, and state-licensed or registered pharmacy interns acting under the supervision of the qualified pharmacist to administer, COVID-19 vaccinations to persons ages 3 or older, subject to certain requirements…” (9/9).

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KFF: Comparing Trump and Biden on COVID-19
This issue brief compares President Trump and Democratic nominee Joe Biden on their records, actions, and proposals related to the COVID-19 pandemic. It includes a general overview of their respective approaches, followed by a detailed side-by-side (9/11).

KFF: KFF Health Tracking Poll — September 2020: Top Issues in 2020 Election, The Role of Misinformation, and Views on A Potential Coronavirus Vaccine
The September KFF Health Tracking Poll explores U.S. public opinion on top issues in the 2020 election and views on a potential COVID-19 vaccine (9/10).

KFF: COVID-19 Coronavirus Tracker — Updated as of September 11, 2020
Data on country government actions in response to COVID-19 are included in the tracker (9/11).

Additional KFF COVID-19 resources on the global situation, as well as those focused on the response and impact within the U.S., are available here. KFF’s blog series “Coronavirus Policy Watch” is available here.

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