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NewSecurityBeat

The blog of the Wilson Center's Environmental Change and Security Program
Showing posts from category Covid-19.
  • Redesigning Health Systems for Global Health Security

    ›
    Africa in Transition  //  Covid-19  //  Guest Contributor  //  February 22, 2021  //  By Uzma Alam, Juliet Nabyonga-Orem, Mohammed Abdulaziz, Ambassador (ret.) Deborah R. Malac, John N. Nkengasong & Dr. Matshidiso R. Moeti
    Lebowakgomo,,Limpopo,,South,Africa,-04/26/2020,-,Community,Healthcare,Workers,Conduct

    This article originally appeared on The Lancet Global Health.

    Africa was predicted to be hardest hit by the COVID-19 pandemic, given its poor health systems. However, this outcome has not been the case. Despite the U.S. being the highest spender on health care globally, COVID-19 has shown that its primary care infrastructure is in much need of strengthening. But we should not mistake COVID-19 as the biggest pandemic of our time. If anything, it is only a dry run, with other epidemics brewing on the horizon. Therefore, if the global community is serious about epidemic preparedness, global health security, and protecting the most vulnerable, we need to redesign health systems for resilience. Africa’s lessons from the COVID-19 pandemic, as well as from concurrent outbreaks of cholera, Ebola virus disease, yellow fever, and chikungunya, could provide a roadmap.

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  • A New Year Brings Enduring Challenges: Financing for Water and Sanitation Utilities During COVID-19

    ›
    Covid-19  //  Guest Contributor  //  February 17, 2021  //  By Tanvi Nagpal & Alayna Sublette
    50593692606_30d0c01038_c

    Eleven months have passed since COVID-19 was declared a global pandemic by the World Health Organization (WHO). As we rang in the new year, the world surpassed two million deaths due to COVID-19. While it is encouraging that 77 countries have distributed 168 million COVID-19 vaccine doses, only a small fraction of these are in low-income countries. Vaccinations may not be widely distributed in most of sub-Saharan Africa until 2022-2023. Furthermore, the new COVID-19 variant recently discovered in South Africa is estimated to be 50 percent more contagious, underscoring the need for a collaborative international response.

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  • Leverage COVID-19 Data Collection Networks for Environmental Peacebuilding

    ›
    Covid-19  //  Guest Contributor  //  January 29, 2021  //  By Carsten Pran
    shutterstock_1779654803

    Environmental peacebuilding could benefit from COVID-era data innovation. A well-documented obstacle environmental peacebuilders face is a lack of shared, empirical datasets among parties engaged in, recovering from, or descending into conflict. Current innovations in data collection may soon help seal these gaps. 

    Countries throughout the world have expanded their data collection capabilities to track the spread of COVID-19. From text message contact tracing to drone surveillance, these innovations inform national responses and shape the global case counting webpages that many of us anxiously refresh every day. The information networks established during the pandemic may endure far into the future, informing new goals, projects, and policies. 

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  • Factor Housing into Maternal and Neonatal Health Policy

    ›
    Covid-19  //  Dot-Mom  //  January 13, 2021  //  By Sara Matthews
    SM Housing insecurity photo

    The United States is facing a crucial moment, one in which more pregnant women are at risk of becoming housing insecure than at any other time in recent history. This leaves an unprecedented number of mothers and babies vulnerable to the associated adverse health risks.  Housing instability – which includes challenges ranging from struggles paying rent to chronic homelessness – harms maternal and neonatal health as much as smoking during pregnancy. The economic effects of COVID-19 threaten to exacerbate the adverse health outcomes associated with homelessness.

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  • Michael Standaert, Ensia

    How effective are China’s attempts to reduce the risk of wildlife spreading disease to humans?

    ›
    Covid-19  //  Guest Contributor  //  January 11, 2021  //  By Wilson Center Staff

    China | 2008 01 | Investigation at a Chinese fur farm.

    This article, by Michael Standaert, originally appeared on Ensia.

    Nearly a year ago, somewhere in China, a previously unknown virus made its way from a wild animal into a human host. There it found not only a hospitable home, but also an opportunity to spread trillions of copies of itself, eventually replicating to become the global Covid-19 pandemic.

    That outbreak, now having infected more than 46 million people around the world, has been the impetus for a series of actions taken by the Chinese government to — in theory — get a handle on zoonotic disease outbreaks now and in the future.

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  • Who’s responsible for feeding hungry people?

    ›
    Covid-19  //  Guest Contributor  //  January 5, 2021  //  By Michelle Jurkovich
    shutterstock_1870001098

    Historically, Americans have not been entitled to adequate, nutritious food when they are hungry, at least not at the expense of federal or state governments. Public food assistance programs are and have always been limited and supplemental and not designed to cover all nutritional needs. The effects of limited government engagement with hunger have disproportionately affected women and people of color and resulted in a patchwork system of assistance where charities and privately funded food banks attempt to fill gaps left by the government’s Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) program.

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  • Shaping a Maternal Mental Health Crisis Response to COVID-19

    ›
    Covid-19  //  Dot-Mom  //  December 16, 2020  //  By Madhavi Roy, Paul Shetler Fast & Vicha Adri
    Maternal mental health photo

    As the number of confirmed COVID-19 cases and deaths rise, women are experiencing more anxiety both during and after pregnancy. One-third of all mental health problems are associated with adverse childhood and community experiences—the pandemic is an adverse community experience being felt worldwide.

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  • Reducing the Risk of Pandemic Disease Threats Through Multisectoral Action

    ›
    Covid-19  //  Guest Contributor  //  November 24, 2020  //  By Dara Carr
    shutterstock_1700761093

    “No single individual, discipline, sector or ministry can preempt and solve complex health problems.”

    — Rwanda One Health Steering Committee1

    The COVID-19 pandemic underscores the importance of multisectoral action to contain and mitigate the effects of the virus. Presently, during crisis conditions or “war time,” in the language of outbreak experts, multisectoral efforts—including actions traversing health, education, labor, finance and other sectors—are readily apparent. But when policymakers perceive crises have passed, during so-called “peacetime,” governance structures that enable multisectoral collaboration tend to diminish or languish.

    MORE
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