As the COVID-19 pandemic reached all corners of the world, countries rapidly introduced a series of containment policies to stop its spread, including school and workplace closures, restrictions on gathering size, and limits to population movement. In contrast to complete or partial border closures for foreign nationals, restrictions on population movements within one’s country have received much less attention, despite the fact that most countries introduced restrictions on internal migration during the pandemic in the form of bans on inter- or intra-provincial travel, or partial or complete lockdowns. With over 300 million internal migrants in India and 261 million in China (out of an estimated 760 million internal migrants worldwide), these barriers to mobility are particularly acute in Asia. But are they effective?

For microbes, there are no boundaries. “They jump the Darwinian divide,” says Sharon Guynup, Environmental Journalist and Wilson Center Global Fellow, in a new episode of Wilson NOW. “Because of human alteration to the planet, we [are] increasing the emergence of new zoonotic diseases,” says Guynup.

“Pandemic recovery plans cannot simply work to bring economies back to their pre-COVID status,” said Katrina Fotovat, Senior Official in the Office of Global Women’s Issues at the U.S. Department of State. She spoke at a recent event hosted by the Wilson Center’s Maternal Health Initiative and Middle East Project in collaboration with EMD Serono, the healthcare business of Merck KGaA, Darmstadt, Germany, on recognizing women’s paid and unpaid work during COVID-19 recovery. Economic recovery plans must include the most undervalued industries and marginalized workers, especially women, she said.

The impacts of COVID-19 have shown policymakers that we need to invest in infrastructure and shore up existing systems to ensure that they can withstand changing conditions over time, says Alice Hill, former special assistant to President Barack Obama and current senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Resilience, in this week’s New Security Broadcast. “As we go forward, we need to have resilient systems. But we haven’t done that yet, we’re unprepared.” Hill sat down with Sherri Goodman, Senior Fellow at the Wilson Center’s Environmental Change and Security Program and former U.S. Deputy Undersecretary of Defense, to her new book, The Fight for Climate After COVID-19, and how the response to COVID-19 can inform approaches to building climate resilience. 

A gaunt, staggering tigress named Galia alerted researchers in the Russian Far East that something was very wrong. She, and soon other wild Amur tigers (Panthera tigris altaica), wandered through villages and stumbled across roads, dazed, hungry, and boldly unafraid of humans — extremely abnormal behavior for this secretive, wary cat.

COVID-19 continues to pose a high risk to pregnant people who contract the virus. Despite this concern, hesitancy surrounding the safety of the COVID-19 vaccine during pregnancy remains, write the authors of a preprint article on COVID-19 vaccines and pregnancy outcomes. As COVID-19 vaccines become more widely available, some have raised concerns regarding potential links between receiving a COVID-19 vaccine and experiencing miscarriage (also known as spontaneous abortion), and other adverse outcomes. However, miscarriage is a common occurrence – around 10 to 15 percent of all pregnancies in the United States end in miscarriage – and multiple studies have found no increase in miscarriage in persons who received a COVID-19 vaccine.

“We produce more than enough food for the world’s population, but more and more people have been growing hungry in recent years,” said Kelly McFarland, Director of Programs and Research at the Institute for the Study of Diplomacy (ISD) at Georgetown University, during a panel discussion on COVID, Conflict, and Climate co-hosted by ISD and the Stimson Center’s Global Governance, Justice & Security, and Food Security Programs.

“When we started out, people thought it was weird. ‘Why are you integrating people and animals and why are you integrating human health and animal health?’” says Kalema-Zikusoka, founder of Conservation Through Public Health (CTPH), in this week’s New Security Broadcast. Indeed, health infrastructure and conservation have long been organized around distinct silos. “Donors were focusing on single sector funding, and government departments were aligned along single sectors,” says Kalema-Zikusoka.