As infuriating as the World Health Organization can be, the reality is that the U.S. cannot "go it alone" on issues like global disease surveillance. Staying in the WHO is aligned with America's long-term security, economic, and geopolitical interests.
global public health
Strict lockdowns might work in some countries, but they aren't going to work everywhere. Americans, in particular, reject such restrictions on liberty, which is why a strict lockdown is sort of like abstinence-only sex education.
Somewhere along the way, our achievable goal of "flattening the curve" for COVID-19 has mutated into "finding a cure," which is perhaps an impossible one. Public health and economic policy must be based on reality, not starry-eyed wish-making. Otherwise, people's lives and livelihoods are in grave danger.
If the spread of COVID-19 is unstoppable, infectious disease epidemiologist Dr. Johan Giesecke says that we must shift our public health strategy away from a futile attempt to prevent its spread and toward providing optimal care for the sickest patients.
A recent poll shows that 78% of Americans support stay-at-home orders. As the economy comes crashing down to levels not seen since the Great Depression, our social fabric will begin to rip, and the public will change its mind.
Bad luck played a role in the COVID-19 pandemic, but China's criminally negligent and malevolent behavior has placed the world in a position in which bad things are likelier to occur. Therefore, China must bear the brunt of the blame, and our relationship with that country should not go back to normal.
Peter Fairley, an environmental journalist and contributing editor for MIT Technology Review, cited an anti-vaccine website, DeSmogBlog, in a smear directed at our organization. Simultaneously, he spread misinformation about influenza and COVID-19 and endorses advice that contradicts that of the CDC and World Health Organization.
We must eliminate both. Here's one group's plan to do that.
Author Steven Pinker's observation, that the world is less violent now than ever in human history, is probably true.
Infectious disease remains a national and global security threat. With the ease in which people can travel around the world, we should expect other exotic diseases to arrive in America. Ebola, Lassa, and Zika have already done so, and yet-to-be-identified microbes are also likely to be imported.
Every year, 5.6 million children under the age of 5 die. That's roughly the same size as the entire Atlanta metropolitan area. Imagine a city that size filled only with children aged 4 and younger. Now, imagine that city being wiped off the map. Every year. That's the scope of the problem that global poverty presents.