Month: November 2020

Facebook Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg told an all-staff meeting Thursday that former Trump White House adviser Steve Bannon had not violated enough of the company’s policies to justify his suspension, according to a recording heard by Reuters.
 
“We have specific rules around how many times you need to violate certain policies before we will deactivate your account completely,” Zuckerberg said. “While the offenses here, I think, came close to crossing that line, they clearly did not cross the line.”
 
Bannon suggested in a video last week that FBI Director Christopher Wray and government infectious diseases expert Anthony Fauci should be beheaded, saying they had been disloyal to U.S. President Donald Trump, who last week lost his re-election bid.
 
Facebook removed the video but left up Bannon’s page. The company had not previously answered questions about those actions and did not immediately respond to a Reuters request about Zuckerberg’s comments.
 
Twitter banned Bannon last week over the same content.
 
Zuckerberg spoke on the issue at a weekly forum with Facebook employees where he is sometimes asked to defend content and policy decisions, like the question on Thursday from a staff member asking why Bannon had not been banned.
 
Arrested in August, Bannon has pleaded not guilty to charges of defrauding hundreds of thousands of donors to the $25 million “We Build the Wall” campaign. Bannon has dismissed the charges as politically motivated.
 
As Trump’s chief White House strategist, Bannon helped articulate Trump’s “America First” policy. Trump fired him in August 2017, ending Bannon’s turbulent tenure.
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The first cruise ship to resume sailing in the Caribbean since the coronavirus outbreak expanded in March, is idled again after five passengers tested positive for the coronavirus.SeaDream, a Norway-based luxury cruise liner, issued a statement Thursday that all crew members had tested negative for the coronavirus and that the ship’s medical staff was in the process of re-testing passengers.SeaDream says it began strict safety protocols following a Norwegian cruise this summer, although passengers were not immediately required to wear masks when boarding the SeaDream.The 53 passengers and 66 crew members are reportedly self-quarantining aboard the ship docked at the Port of Bridgetown in Barbados.The cruise ship industry has been hard hit by the pandemic, with the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention issuing an order banning sailing in March, citing cruise ship travel would worsen the global spread of COVID-19.
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Peru is set to host Phase 3 clinical trials of the Janssen Pharmaceutical Cos. COVID-19 vaccine by U.S.-based pharmaceutical company Johnson & Johnson.Dr. Jorge Gallardo, principal director of the Ensemble trial, told America Noticias TV show that Peru was chosen because of the makeup of its population and the impact of the coronavirus in the country.Peru is seeking 3,500 participants in the multinational study that will include participants from eight countries, including the United States.The trials will include participants with preexisting conditions, such as diabetes, and those over 60 years of age to ensure the overall efficacy of the vaccine.Peru has one of the highest coronavirus totals in Latin America, with more than 925,000 coronavirus cases and 34,992 deaths, according to Johns Hopkins University Coronavirus Resource Center.
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For years, the European Union has been leading the fight to impose a global tax on technology multinationals. After years of resistance by the Trump administration, the Europeans now hope the incoming Biden administration will be willing to compromise – or face a possible digital tax.Google, Amazon, Facebook and Apple: four companies dubbed as GAFA in France by those who criticize what they say are the multinationals’ avoidance of European taxes.The projected outcome of the presidential vote in the United States did not change Europeans’ eagerness to tackle the issue with a Biden administration after years of resistance by the Trump administration.Thierry Breton is the E.U.’s Internal Market Commissioner.He explains that Europe is not naive anymore in its expectations regarding its partnership with the United States. Europeans cannot afford to be naïve anymore, he said.The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, OECD, hosted the international talks over digital taxation. Members postponed a deadline for an agreement into 2021 after the U.S. pulled out of talks in June due to the coronavirus pandemic.French economy minister, Bruno Le Maire, said Washington is unlikely to drop what he called its confrontational stance on the issue no matter who is in the White House.”Digital giants are now the adversaries of governments,” Le Maire said, vowing that they would soon be taxed “at the same rate as French companies.” It is a position echoed by Commissioner Breton.He said that a discussion has been initiated by the OECD and even though the United States got out of it, he said this a negotiation and they can come back. Europeans set a deadline until June 2021 to complete this negotiation, Breton said. If all the other countries agree but the United States does not return to the negotiating table, Europe will take its responsibilities and we will impose a tax, Breton insists.Some in Europe warn that a Biden administration will still resist imposing a tax on U.S. technology companies. President-elect Biden and his vice president-elect, Kamala Harris, reportedly have as many connections with Silicon Valley as the Obama administration had between 2009 and 2017.Arno Pons is the head of Digital New Deal, a Paris research organization.Pons said Joe Biden was Barack Obama’s vice-president during an administration that was clearly pro-GAFA and probably has the same views now. As for Kamala Harris, originally from California, he sees her as having close ties to the executives of big technology firms. Pons cites as an example the recent nomination in the transition team of former employees from Apple and Facebook.Last month, the OECD warned that tensions over a digital tax could trigger a trade war that could wipe out one percent of global growth every year. 
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Sniffer dogs are being used to identify people infected with the coronavirus, and early trials suggest they are incredibly accurate at detecting the disease. As Henry Ridgwell reports, this is raising hopes that our canine companions could soon be used to help fight the pandemic.Producer: Mary Cieslak. Camera: Henry Ridgwell.
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The World Health Organization reports measles cases and deaths have soared around the globe since 2016. It reports an increase in cases to nearly 270,000 last year, while more than 207,000 people died—a 50 percent increase from 2016 levels.The U.N. agency says the failure to inoculate children on time with two doses of measles vaccines is the main driver for increased cases and deaths. It says vaccination coverage remains well below the 95 percent needed to control the disease and prevent outbreaks and deaths.Added to this mix is the coronavirus pandemic. Although reported cases of measles are lower this year than last, WHO says efforts to control the coronavirus outbreak have resulted in disruptions in vaccination.  WHO’s senior technical advisor for measles and rubella, Natasha Crowcroft, tells VOA different strategies are needed to prevent new measles outbreaks in the time of COVID-19, the disease brought on by the coronavirus. “The Number One action we need to take is to prevent outbreaks from happening in countries where we have got the highest risks…and there are several where there is not the ability to be able to put the health system in place to be able to rely on,” she said.Crowcroft says countries where routine immunization for children was happening will recover quickly from delays or suspended coverage during this difficult period.  She says weak countries will continue to be at risk of deadly outbreaks unless swift action is taken to close this widening gap.The WHO reports more than 94 million people are at risk of missing vaccines because nationwide campaigns have been put on pause in 26 countries. This led to huge outbreaks in the Democratic Republic of Congo and Madagascar.  Eight of the 26 countries now have resumed their campaigns. They include Brazil, Central African Republic, Democratic Republic of Congo, Ethiopia, Nepal, Nigeria, Philippines and Somalia.  
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Greece and Turkey have long been at loggerheads over a host of issues – from a scattering of uninhabited islands in the Aegean Sea that divide them, to the origins of souvlaki.Now, they are trading jabs anew, this time trying to trump each other’s claims to Pfizer’s creation of what may be the world’s first demonstrably effective coronavirus vaccine.Since the company’s announcement earlier this week, media and medical experts from around the globe have hailed the drug’s pioneers, Dr. Ozlem Tureci and Dr. Ugur Sahin, as heroes.While both scientists are children of Turkish migrants who moved to Germany as part of the first guest worker generation in the late 1960s, the pair founded BioNTech in 2008 to develop new types of targeted cancer treatments.Two men wearing masks to help protect against the spread of coronavirus, watch their dogs playing in a public garden, in Ankara, Turkey, Nov. 12, 2020.As the coronavirus pandemic spread earlier this year, BioNTech, which employs 1,300 people, quickly moved to reallocate its resources, teaming up with the U.S. pharmacy industry giant Pfizer to develop 20 candidates for a vaccine.As the world this week breathed a sigh of relief at news that one of the experimental vaccines had shown results, Turkey, like perhaps no other state, went into a frenzy.Since the revelation, Turkish news media have splashed pictures and praise of the “Turkish dream team” on the fronts of newspapers, magazines and websites. Politicians have praised them for contributing to humanity. Even teachers across the nation are said to be aggressively lecturing students about what is being described as the great Turkish feat.On the other side of the Aegean divide, though, Greeks are giving scant coverage and little praise to the scientific duo, largely referring to them as Germans, rather than Turkish nationals.Pundits, press and politicians have instead taken to rejoicing their own national success: Albert Bourla, the Greek veterinarian at the helm of Pfizer and his strategy of striking a deal with BioNTech to produce and globally distribute the landmark drug.“A Greek yields hope of a breakthrough,” shouted the Athens-based Skai television network, featuring reports and special segments about Bourla and his rise from the humble origins in Thessaloniki, northern Greece.“The Greek who steers Pfizer,” blared the Capital.gr news site, as politicians across the divide posted pictures and praises for the leading Greek executive, fanning web chatter that the small and poor country, in the throes of a tragic COVID-19 comeback, would be the first to receive samples of the vaccine.5 Things to Know About Pfizer’s Coronavirus Vaccine Early results look great, but questions remain Having joined Pzifer’s animal-health division in 1993, Bourla became the company’s chief executive last year, striking a string of successful deals. In the first nine months of his tenure, he refocused the company toward patent-protected drugs and vaccines with the potential for significant sales growth.The drug maker’s announcement this week triggered a surge in BioNTech’s stock, pushing the company’s shares up by 23.4%, and rallying markets globally.BioNTech and Pfizer had been working together on a flu vaccine since 2018, but they agreed to collaborate on a coronavirus vaccine in March.Both sides left politics and age-old rivalries aside, bonding more over their shared backgrounds as scientists and immigrants.“We realized that he is from Greece, and I’m from Turkey,” Sahin said in a recent interview, avoiding mention of their native countries’ long-running antagonism. “It was very personal from the beginning.”While both NATO allies, Greece and Turkey have been at odds over air, sea and land rights for decades. They came to the brink of war in September before Washington waded into a standoff in the eastern Mediterranean, urging Ankara to recall a vessel exploring for energy off the coast of a Greek island.    EU and U.S. diplomats have long tried to bridge the Greek-Turkish divide and build trust between the two sides through business. A major thawing of relations in 1999 saw trade between the two countries soar while cultural barriers eroded dramatically.Whether the Pfizer and BioNTech cooperation on good science can serve as a catalyst for improved Greek-Turkish relations remains unclear, pundits and politicians quip on both sides.  For now, though, the rivalries seem to have no impact on Pfizer’s collaboration with BioNtech.“He’s a scientist and a man of principles,” Bourla said of Sahin, in a recent interview. “I trust him 100%.”
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The United States set another single-day record for the number of COVID-19 infections on Wednesday.Data compiled by The COVID Tracking Project shows more than 144,000 new cases were reported across the U.S., surpassing the more than 136,000 new cases recorded just the day before.  The data also shows 65,368 people were hospitalized with COVID-19, shattering the 61,964 mark set one day earlier  Another 1,421 people died Wednesday, pushing the 7-day average over 1,000.  Texas Surpasses 1 Million COVID-19 CasesCDC changes advice on wearing masks, saying they benefit both wearer and anyone nearby The new figures add to the United States’ world-leading casualty figures of more than 10.4 million total COVID-19 cases since the pandemic reached its shores earlier this year, including more than 241,000 deaths, according to data from Johns Hopkins University.  The nation’s most-populous state of California is nearing the 1 million mark of total COVID-19 cases, following Texas, which became the first U.S. state to reach the grim threshold on Wednesday.  In Brazil, late-stage trials of a potential COVID-19 vaccine have resumed after the country’s health regulator called a halt due to an “adverse, serious event” involving a participant in the study.  The vaccine, dubbed CoronaVac, is being developed by Chinese pharmaceutical company Sinovac.  The vaccine had been denounced by Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro, a frequent critic of China.   Brazil has the highest coronavirus tally in Latin America, with more than 5.7 million confirmed cases and 168,368 deaths, according to the Johns Hopkins University  Coronavirus Resource Center.In Spain, authorities announced Wednesday that travelers from countries considered high-risk areas for COVID-19 will have to show proof of a negative test before they can enter the country.  Travelers must have a copy of the original document, either on paper or in an electronic format, that shows the test was conducted 72 hours before their planned departure.  In Japan, organizers for the 2021 Tokyo Olympics said Thursday that participating athletes will not have to enter a mandatory 14-day quarantine period when they arrive for the games next year.  Games Chief Executive Toshiro Muto told reporters that a decision on allowing foreign spectators to observe the events would be finalized next year, but said it is a possibility the two-week quarantine could be waived for them as well.  The Tokyo Summer Games were initially scheduled to be held this July and August, but organizers in March decided to postpone them for a year due to the pandemic.  
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The U.S. Treasury Department and China-based ByteDance say they are focused on resolving a battle over U.S. security concerns that prompted President Donald Trump to order the company to divest its popular TikTok app by Thursday.Trump signed an Aug. 14 order setting a 90-day deadline as he alleged that if the app remains under the control of a Chinese company, then the Chinese government could spy on TikTok users.TikTok says it is not a security threat. It has been pursuing an agreement with Oracle and Walmart to shift TikTok’s U.S. operations to a new company, and earlier this week asked a court to authorize an extension after receiving “no substantive feedback” from the Trump administration about its proposed fix.”Facing continual new requests and no clarity on whether our proposed solutions would be accepted, we requested the 30-day extension that is expressly permitted in the August 14 order,” TikTok said in a statement Tuesday.The Treasury Department said Wednesday it “remains focused on reaching a resolution of the national security risks arising from ByteDance’s acquisition of Musical.ly, in accordance with the August 14 order signed by the President, and we have been clear with ByteDance regarding the steps necessary to achieve that resolution.”TikTok has 100 million U.S. users.
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Texas became the first U.S. state Wednesday to surpass 1 million confirmed cases of COVID-19, with California close behind.Health officials in the country’s second most populous state recorded 10,800 new cases on Tuesday, a one-day record. Although they gave no indication of imminent restrictions to slow the surge, The Associated Press reported that a top county official in Fort Worth, the state’s fifth-largest city, began pushing to halt youth and school sports. Some rural hospitals have set up outdoor medical tents.On Wednesday, state health officials reported 6,779 patients in hospitals, with 609 newly admitted patients — one of the highest single-day spikes since the state began keeping track.The true number of infections is likely higher because many people have not been tested, and studies suggest people can be infected and not feel sick.NationwideThe United States recorded 61,964 COVID-19 hospitalizations on Tuesday, breaking the previous one-day high from mid-April by more than 2,000.As the pandemic worsens across the U.S., the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention revised its guidance on the use of face masks. The federal health agency said Tuesday that wearing a mask not only protects other people but also protects the wearer.FILE – A sign encouraging the wearing of masks and adhering to social distancing stands at a street corner in downtown Nashville, Tenn., Aug. 5, 2020.The CDC cited several studies confirming that “universal masking” helped control the spread of the virus, including one involving two hairstylists who wore masks while suffering from symptoms. The study found that the stylists had not transmitted the coronavirus to 67 customers who were later notified by contact tracers.On Wednesday, White House political affairs director Brian Jack and former White House aide Healy Baumgardner tested positive for the coronavirus after attending an election night party at the White House on November 3. Since then, White House chief of staff Mark Meadows and Housing and Urban Development Secretary Ben Carson also tested positive.The U.S. leads the world with more than 10.2 million total cases, including more than 136,000 new cases reported on Tuesday, according to data from Johns Hopkins University. The U.S. reported more than 1 million new COVID-19 cases in just the first 10 days of November, averaging more than 110,000 new cases a day.WorldwideCOVID-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus, has claimed over 1.2 million lives worldwide since the first cases were recorded in December 2019.According to the latest figures from Johns Hopkins, more than 51 million cases have been confirmed around the world.A man wearing a face mask walks past a coronavirus sign during the second nationwide lockdown in London, Nov. 10, 2020.Britain on Wednesday became the fifth country in the world to record over 50,000 deaths from the coronavirus and currently has the highest COVID-19 death rate in Europe. British lawmakers mandated a countrywide lockdown last week as the nation began battling a resurgence of the virus.Spain has recorded over 40,000 deaths, while Italy, one of the worst-hit countries earlier this year in the pandemic, surpassed 1 million cases.Elsewhere in the world, Iran and Lebanon joined the growing list of nations that have imposed new restrictions to blunt a growing surge of infections that are pushing hospitals in each nation to the breaking point.Iran has ordered all restaurants and nonessential businesses in Tehran and other major cities to close at 6 p.m. local time for one month. In Lebanon, Prime Minister Hassan Diab has announced a one-month lockdown that will begin Saturday.Iran has more than 700,000 confirmed cases, including 10,339 on Tuesday, according to Johns Hopkins, while Lebanon has 96,907 confirmed cases, including 749 deaths.First case in VanuatuMeanwhile, the Pacific nation of Vanuatu announced its first confirmed infection, ending its status as one of the few places in the world that had been free of the coronavirus.Health authorities said the infected man, a 23-year-old native of Vanuatu, had returned home from the United States last week, with stops in Sydney and Auckland, Australia, and had been placed in quarantine. The man was asymptomatic when he returned but tested positive on Tuesday.Secretary for Food and Health Sophia Chan and other officials attend a press conference in Hong Kong, Nov. 11, 2020. Hong Kong and Singapore will at month’s end allow travelers in both cities to visit the other without having to serve quarantine.Hong Kong and Singapore announced plans to start an air travel “bubble” this month that would allow travelers from each city to visit the other without entering quarantine. Beginning November 22, visitors must have a negative test at every stage of the journey.The two cities say the flights will be limited to one per day into each city, with just 200 passengers per flight. The goal is two flights a day beginning December 7. The bubble will be suspended if either city experiences a surge of infections.Richard Green and Esha Sarai contributed to this report. 
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The U.S. Treasury Department said on Wednesday it wants a resolution of national security risks it has raised over ByteDance’s 2017 acquisition on Musical.ly, which it then merged into the TikTok video-sharing app. The statement came a day after China-based ByteDance filed a petition with the U.S. Court of Appeals in Washington challenging a Trump administration order set to take effect on Thursday requiring it to divest TikTok. “The Treasury Department remains focused on reaching a resolution of the national security risks arising from ByteDance’s acquisition of Musical.ly,” Treasury spokeswoman Monica Crowley said. “We have been clear with ByteDance regarding the steps necessary to achieve that resolution.” TikTok did not immediately comment. President Donald Trump in an August 14 order directed ByteDance to divest the app within 90 days, which falls on Thursday. The Trump administration contends TikTok poses national security concerns as the personal data of U.S. users could be obtained by China’s government. TikTok, which has over 100 million U.S. users, denies the allegations. ByteDance, which has been in talks for a deal with Walmart Inc. and Oracle Corp. to shift TikTok’s U.S. assets into a new entity, said Tuesday it was requesting a 30-day extension so that it can finalize terms. “Facing continual new requests and no clarity on whether our proposed solutions would be accepted, we requested the 30-day extension that is expressly permitted in the August 14 order,” TikTok said in a statement. TikTok announced a preliminary deal in September for Walmart and Oracle to take stakes in a new company to oversee U.S. operations called TikTok Global. Trump has said the deal had his “blessing.” 
 
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As election misinformation raged online, Facebook Inc. said on Wednesday its post-election ban on political ads would likely last another month, raising concerns from campaigns and groups eager to reach voters for key Georgia Senate races in January.
 
The ban, one of Facebook’s measures to combat misinformation and other abuses on its site, was supposed to last about a week but could be extended. Alphabet Inc.’s Google also appeared to be sticking with its post-election political ad ban.
 
“While multiple sources have projected a presidential winner, we still believe it’s important to help prevent confusion or abuse on our platform,” Facebook told advertisers in an email seen by Reuters. It said to expect the pause to last another month though there “may be an opportunity to resume these ads sooner.”
 
Facebook later confirmed the extension in a blog post.
 
Baseless claims about the election reverberated around social media this week as President Donald Trump challenged the validity of the outcome, even as state officials reported no significant irregularities, and legal experts cautioned he had little chance to overturn Democratic President-elect Joe Biden’s victory.
 
In one Facebook group created on Sunday, which rapidly grew to nearly 400,000 members by Wednesday, members calling for a nationwide recount swapped unfounded accusations about alleged election fraud and shifting state vote counts every few seconds.
 
“The reality is right now that we are not through the danger zone,” said Vanita Gupta, chief executive of the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights.
 
Google declined to answer questions about the length of its ad pause, although one advertiser said the company had floated the possibility of extending it through or after December. A Google spokeswoman previously said the company would lift its ban based on factors such as the time needed for votes to be counted and whether there was civil unrest.
 
The extensions mean that the top two digital advertising behemoths, which together control more than half the market, are not accepting election ads ahead of the two U.S. Senate runoff races in Georgia that could decide control of that chamber.
 
Democratic and Republican digital strategists who spoke to Reuters railed against those decisions, saying the ad bans were overly broad and failed to combat a much bigger problem on the platforms: the organic spread of viral lies in unpaid posts.
 
The Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, along with the Senate campaigns of Georgia Democrats Jon Ossoff and Raphael Warnock, called for an exemption for the Georgia Senate run-offs so they could make voters aware of upcoming deadlines.
 
Ossoff faces incumbent Republican Sen. David Perdue, and Warnock faces incumbent Republican Sen. Kelly Loeffler.
 
“It is driving us absolutely bonkers,” said Mark Jablonowski, managing partner of DSPolitical, a digital firm that works with Democratic causes.
 
“They’re essentially holding the rest of the political process hostage,” said Eric Wilson, a Republican digital strategist, who said he thought the companies’ concerns about ads on the election outcome did not require a blanket ban. “This is something that deserves a scalpel and they’re using a rusty ax,” he added.
 
The companies declined to say when they would lift other “break-glass” election measures introduced for unpaid posts, like Facebook’s limits on the distribution of live videos and demotions of content that its systems predict may be misinformation.
 
Facebook spokesman Andy Stone said those emergency measures would not be permanent, but that rollback was “not imminent.”
 
Google’s YouTube, which is labeling all election-related videos with information about the outcome, said it would stick with that approach “as long as it’s necessary.”
 
The video-sharing company bans “demonstrably false” claims about the election process, but has used the tool sparingly, saying hyperbolic statements about a political party “stealing” the election does not violate the policy.
 
However, Twitter Inc. has stopped using its most restrictive election-related warning labels, which hid and limited engagement on violating tweets. Instead, the company is now using lighter-touch labels that “provide additional context,” spokeswoman Katie Rosborough said.
 
Twitter placed a label reading “this claim about election fraud is disputed” on two of Trump’s tweets Tuesday morning, but each was retweeted more than 80,000 times by that evening.
 
Democratic strategists, including members of the Biden campaign who tweeted criticism of Facebook, said social media companies’ measures were not effectively curbing the spread of viral lies.
 
Nina Jankowicz, a disinformation fellow at the Wilson Center, said the ad pauses were needed but not sufficient for tackling false information.
 
“Clearly President Trump does not think the election is over, so I don’t think the platforms should treat it as if it is,” she said. 
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As the coronavirus explodes again, the World Health Organization finds itself both under intense pressure to reform and holding out hope that U.S. President-elect Joe Biden will reverse a decision by Washington to leave the health agency.
With its annual meeting underway this week, WHO has been sharply criticized for not taking a stronger and more vocal role in handling the pandemic. For example, in private internal meetings in the early days of the virus, top scientists described some countries’ approaches as “an unfortunate laboratory to study the virus” and a “macabre” opportunity to see what worked, recordings obtained by The Associated Press show. Yet in public, the U.N. health agency lauded governments for their responses.
Biden has promised to overturn President Donald Trump’s decision in June to cut off funds to WHO and withdraw the U.S. WHO has also bowed to demands from member countries for an independent panel to review its management of the pandemic response, and WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said Monday that the agency welcomed “any and all attempts” to strengthen it “for the sake of the people we serve.”
One of the central dilemmas facing the WHO is that it has no enforcement powers or authority to independently investigate within countries. Instead, the health agency relies on behind-the-scenes talks and the cooperation of member states.
Critics say WHO’s traditional aversion to confronting its member countries has come at a high price. As COVID-19 spread, WHO often shied away from calling out countries, as big donors such as Japan, France and Britain made repeated mistakes, according to dozens of leaked recordings of internal WHO meetings and documents from January to April obtained by The Associated Press.
Some public health experts say WHO’s failure to exert its influence lent credence to countries adopting risky outbreak policies, possibly compromising efforts to stop the virus.
“We need WHO to be bold and to use their political power to name and shame because the consequences are so devastating,” said Sophie Harman, a professor of international politics at Queen Mary University in London. “This is their Spanish flu moment … By not speaking up when countries are doing questionable things, WHO is undermining its own authority while the planet burns.”
Others said it would be politically unwise for WHO to be too outspoken unless countries give the agency more power and the ability to censure countries — an option that Germany and France have recently proposed.
“If Tedros was to take a very aggressive stance toward member countries, there would be repercussions,” said Suerie Moon, co-director of the Global Health Centre at the Graduate Institute of Geneva, referring to WHO’s director-general.
WHO spokeswoman Farah Dakhlallah said that since the beginning of the coronavirus outbreak, “WHO officials have had and continue to have, frank and open discussions with government counterparts … We are proud of an organizational culture that fosters candid discussion with the aim of reaching life-saving solutions.”
One of the scientists in the meetings, emergencies chief Dr. Michael Ryan, also laid out WHO’s approach in answer to a media question March 11 on whether the agency was willing to say which countries weren’t doing enough.
“The answer to that question is, you know who you are,” Ryan said. “The WHO doesn’t interact in public debate or criticize our member states in public. What we try to do is work with our member states constructively.”
It’s not unprecedented, however, for WHO to publicly question its member states. It threatened to close its China office when the country was hiding cases during the SARS outbreak, loudly called for Nigeria to reverse its boycott of the polio vaccine in 2003 and accused Tanzania of not sharing enough information about an Ebola epidemic last year.
The review of WHO’s role in the pandemic comes at a critical time because the agency is now tasked with helping to buy and distribute coronavirus vaccines around the world once any prove effective, especially to poorer nations. Some countries, including the U.S. and Russia, have refused to join the effort, but on Sunday, WHO chief scientist Dr. Soumya Swaminathan said she hoped Biden’s election would “open the door” to U.S. inclusion.
WHO’s reticence to call out countries started with China, as the AP earlier reported. Despite a January meeting between Tedros and Chinese President Xi Jinping, information on the outbreak was still sparse throughout February. Maria Van Kerkhove, WHO’s technical lead for COVID-19, noted that the agency lacked “enough detail to say what has worked and what hasn’t.”
Yet at a media briefing shortly afterwards, Tedros said, “China is doing many good things that are slowing the virus and the facts speak for themselves.”
Also in February, WHO scientists were concerned about Japan. On Feb. 1, a passenger who disembarked the Diamond Princess cruise ship in Hong Kong tested positive for the coronavirus. At the ship’s next stop in Yokohama, 10 more cases were found and authorities put all 3,711 people on board under lockdown.
Ryan told reporters at the time: “Let’s be careful here not to overreact.” But on Feb. 10, the case count nearly doubled overnight.
“(That’s) not surprising given the nature of the response of the investigation,” Ryan said at an internal meeting, saying only a small number of epidemiologists had been assigned to the outbreak. “If you double the number of cases in a ship in a day, something is not right.”
Dr. Thomas Grein, WHO’s chief of acute events management team, reported to his colleagues that WHO had discussed the outbreak with their Japanese counterparts, but failed to glean much useful information.
“It’s a very, very sensitive issue and we need to tread carefully,” he warned.
Although WHO was keenly aware the situation was deteriorating, scientists said the outbreak could help in understanding COVID-19 transmission patterns.
“(It’s) unfortunate, but a useful opportunity to study the natural history of the virus,” Ryan said.
Several days later, Japanese outbreak specialist Dr. Kentaro Iwata went aboard the Diamond Princess and called the response “completely chaotic.” Soon afterward, WHO announced more than half of the world’s known COVID-19 cases outside China were aboard the Diamond Princess.
“It was very obvious on that cruise ship that things were going badly wrong and WHO should have said something,” said Lawrence Gostin, director of the WHO Collaborating Center on Public Health Law and Human Rights at Georgetown University. “When what countries are doing is flat-out wrong, we need WHO to say so.”
While WHO wasn’t specific, Tedros said on Feb. 26: “One of the biggest challenges we face is that too many affected countries are still not sharing data with WHO.”
Throughout February and March, COVID-19 triggered outbreaks in South Korea, Singapore, Iran and elsewhere. The virus also gained a foothold in Italy, turning Europe into the epicenter of the pandemic.
At WHO, officials worried in internal meetings about the lack of information from European member states. Grein said WHO’s efforts to get more detail about the spiraling outbreaks had “spectacularly failed.”
Yet on March 8, Tedros tweeted that “the government & the people of Italy are taking bold, courageous steps aimed at slowing the spread of the #coronavirus & protecting their country & world.” Three days later, Tedros declared COVID-19 to be a pandemic, saying the announcement was made partly due to “alarming levels of inaction” by countries, which he didn’t name.
Georgetown University’s Gostin said WHO should be obligated to publicly report when countries aren’t sharing enough data.
“If a country is not providing vital epidemiological or biological information, then WHO and the world are flying blind in an outbreak and we can’t have that,” he said.
WHO also complained in private about Western countries hoarding scarce pandemic supplies.
“We had the terrible situation yesterday with (protective personal equipment) where all the supplies were requisitioned in France and we lost access,” Ryan told his colleagues. He said WHO needed to pressure countries and companies to avoid similar situations.
As countries across Europe moved to adopt social distancing measures and cancel mass gatherings in early March, Ryan noticed one country didn’t: Britain.
“There isn’t a single sports event in Europe and yet all of the Premier League matches in the U.K. are to go ahead as normal,” he said. Ryan described Britain’s pandemic strategy as “problematic” after hearing the U.K.’s chief scientific officer publicly say the country was aiming for herd immunity.
“For that to happen, hundreds of thousands and millions of older people are going to become infected and there is just going to be so much death,” Ryan said. Still, he said, the different approaches to tackling COVID-19 globally could prove to be “a massive ecological study” that would allow WHO to document what worked best.
“It’s macabre in some ways, but it’s reality,” he said.
Going forward, WHO’s role in the continued unfolding of the pandemic will depend in part on the panel review. Harman, the expert from Queen Mary University, sympathized that WHO had enormous responsibility in the early months of COVID-19, but said even greater challenges loom now.
“This is not an experiment for WHO to learn lessons for the future, the stakes are too high for that,” she said. “With the next wave of the pandemic, I think the time for quiet diplomacy has passed.”
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A vaccine for the coronavirus has proved 90% effective after early trials, according to its joint developers Pfizer and BioNTech. It’s raised hopes that the global coronavirus pandemic can be brought under control in the coming months – but as Henry Ridgwell reports, the nature of the vaccine means less developed health systems face major challenges in rolling out any inoculation programs.Camera: Henry Ridgwell    
Producer:  Henry Ridgwell, Mary Cieslak 
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ByteDance, the Chinese parent company of video-sharing app TikTok, filed a petition late Tuesday with a U.S. Appeals Court challenging a Trump administration order set to take effect Thursday requiring it to divest TikTok. President Donald Trump in an Aug. 14 order directed ByteDance to divest the app within 90 days, which falls on Thursday. “Facing continual new requests and no clarity on whether our proposed solutions would be accepted, we requested the 30-day extension that is expressly permitted in the August 14 order,” TikTok said in a statement. “Without an extension in hand, we have no choice but to file a petition in court to defend our rights,” the company said. FILE – Women wearing masks to prevent the spread of the coronavirus chat as they pass by the headquarters of ByteDance, owners of TikTok, in Beijing, China, Aug. 7, 2020.The White House and Treasury declined to comment. The Justice Department did not immediately comment. The Trump administration contends TikTok poses national security concerns as the personal data of U.S. users could be obtained by China’s government. TikTok, which has over 100 million U.S. users, denies the allegations. The petition names Trump, Attorney General William Barr, Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin and the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS), the inter-agency panel that reviews certain transactions involving foreign investment on national security concerns. It says the CFIUS action and Trump order “seek to compel the wholesale divestment of TikTok, a multibillion-dollar business built on technology developed by” ByteDance “based on the government’s purported national security review of a three-year-old transaction that involved a different business.” That order was based on a government review of ByteDance’s 2017 acquisition of U.S. social media app Musical.ly, which ByteDance merged into TikTok. Separate restrictions on TikTok from the U.S. Commerce Department have been blocked by federal courts, including restrictions on transactions that were scheduled to take effect Thursday that TikTok warned could effectively ban the app’s use in the United States. Talks have been ongoing to finalize a preliminary deal for Walmart Inc and Oracle Corp to take stakes in a new company to oversee U.S. operations. Trump has said the deal had his “blessing.” 
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