AP: U.N. chief: Vaccine can’t undo damage from global pandemic
“The U.N. chief warned Thursday that the social and economic impact of COVID-19 ‘is enormous and growing’ and said it’s foolish to believe a vaccine can undo damage from the global pandemic that will last for years or even decades. Speaking to world leaders at the General Assembly’s first and mainly virtual special session on COVID-19, Secretary-General António Guterres accused some countries he didn’t name of ignoring or rejecting the World Health Organization’s recommendations at the start of the crisis early this year, resulting in nations going in their own directions and the virus spreading ‘in every direction’…” (Lederer, 12/4).

U.N. News: COVID-19 recovery, focus of U.N. General Assembly special session
“Nations united on Thursday for a special session of the U.N. General Assembly to survey the wreckage of the COVID-19 pandemic, reflect on the best response, and forge a path to better days ahead. ‘Today marks an overdue and much needed moment of reckoning. None of us could have imagined, this time last year, what was to come,’ said Assembly President Volkan Bozkir, speaking at the opening of the two-day gathering…” (12/3).

Additional coverage of the special session is available from Canadian Press/CP24, POLITICO, Reuters, and Xinhua.