UN Chief Asks the World for Trillions or ‘Millions Will Die’

The coronavirus is  increasing in poor nations. Without strong support from
wealthy nations, corporations, philanthropies, the COVID-19 will bounce
bank into the developed world. 

“If we do not act decisively now, I fear the virus will establish a foothold in
the most fragile countries, leaving the whole world vulnerable as it continues
to circle the planet, paying no mind to borders,” United Nations Secretary-
General Antonio Guterres said.

For the United Nations, he said, the pandemic was “the most
challenging crisis we have faced since the Second World War.” because
“humankind was at stake.” 

“COVID-19 has now a foothold in almost every country on earth,” he said,

with “over 16,000 deaths in 195 countries,” adding that the virus was
“moving south and moving south in a very dangerous way.”

Guterres held a major virtual news conference on March 25 to ask the world
to raise $2 billion for developing nations in Africa, Asia and South America
that needed to expand their humanitarian systems.He did not answer
questions, including one from this reporter, on how much had been pledged.

Then  on March 31, he released a 26-page  report that said nothing less than
10 percent of the world’s GDP would suffice. In 2019  this amounted to
some $8 to $9 trillion. He called it the “COVID-19 Response and 

“It is essential that developed countries immediately assist those less

developed to bolster their health systems,” he said. “Otherwise we face the
nightmare of the disease spreading like wildfire in the global South with
millions of deaths ..”

Interviewing specialists, the Wall Street Journal said the coronavirus is “now
taking off in the world’s poorest countries.”

“From Venezuela to Pakistan to the Democratic Republic of Congo—and

nearly every developing country between—confirmed cases have started to
spike in recent days, a sign the contagion is advancing exponentially,
disease-control experts say,” the Journal wrote.
Missing from the UN and other recent projects was Central America, the
migrants leaving violent homes and the prisoners on the U.S. side of the
border.

Guterres said the International Monetary Fund believes the world has
already entered a recession.

UN Headquarters Grows Quiet

At the United Nations, meetings have been canceled or handled remotely.

But senior staff are seen in the building at conference tables during virtual
news conferences, including the heads of major bodies as well as some
undersecretaries-general. Guterres is in his office most days, telephoning
world leaders. The 15-member UN Security Council has been working by
teleconference, passing resolutions on Somalia, Sudan, Afghanistan and the
Middle East. But it has not been able to adopt one on the coronavirus with
China, Russia and the United States arguing, diplomats reported.

Among the many conferences postponed or canceled is the Nuclear Non-

Proliferation Treaty’s crucial five-year review. The new date is supposed to
be no later than April 2021.

Then on March 28, Guterres met New York Mayor Bill de Blasio to hand
over 250,000 face masks the UN had in storage. He said he hoped that the
protective equipment would “play some small role in saving lives.” Many of
the world body’s more than 4,000 staff live in New York. The mayor called
the donation and other positive moments “grains of light.”

Some 100 UN staff members have contracted the virus, most of them in
Europe, said chief UN spokesman Stephane Dujarric at this daily briefing on
March 30. 

Changing the World?

Basically, the UN wants to stop the coronavirus from enveloping the

developing world, a near-impossible task. It will use teams of staff and
partners already in nearly every fragile country. And there are 110,000
peacekeepers in 13 nations, who are not permitted to rotate while the virus is
spreading.
One enormous problem is that the impoverished cannot isolate themselves at
home because they depend on wages or other funds to feed their families. 

The World Health Organization (WHO), headed by Dr. Tedros Adhanom

Ghebreyesus, is at the global center for news, help and advice on the
coronavirus. WHO had declared the virus a world pandemic and gave it the
name COVID-19. He gives a daily briefing.

 
WHO recently undertook a blanket distribution of protective equipment to
24 African countries. The Geneva-based UN agency has also brought
scientists together and helped fund research and a future vaccine. On March
28, he announced that WHO had enrolled patients Norway and Spain in a
“drug trial to test treatments for the coronavirus.” More than 45 countries are
contributing to the trial.
 
Even Israel, sharply critical of the United Nations, said it was the right body
to deal with the pandemic. According to its UN ambassador, Danny Danon:
“The U.N. Secretary-General and its institutions, in particular the World
Health Organization, are proving that the United Nations is just the
organization that the world needs to address the global nature of the
coronavirus pandemic.”
 
Who Is Donating Funds?
(update with Stephane’s latest)
 
And then there are sanctions. The Trump administration has added to those
against Iran and countries who trade with it, insisting that this did not
prevent humanitarian relief. Venezuela and Cuba are also high on the
sanctions list. Both Guterres and Michelle Bachelet, the human rights
commissioner, have repeatedly called for easing or suspending the
embargoes.
 
The State Department said it was contribution to WHO, the UNHCR refugee
agency as well as UNICEF and the World Food Program, both headed by
Americans.
 
 
Children, Children, Children
UNICEF executive director Henrietta Fore warned nations not to stop
programs that tackle measles or cholera. She said that one in six children do
not have hygiene services. And she recalled that the Ebola outbreak in West
Africa, 2014-2016 resulted in spikes in “in child labor, neglect, sexual abuse
and teenage pregnancies.”

Fore had a dream. On February 19 in a Council on Foreign Relations speech,

she spoke of how she was organizing telecommunication firms so that every
school in the world could be connected to the internet.
 
War Zones

In charge of coordinating the UN program is Mark Lowcock, the

undersecretary-general for humanitarian affairs. Landing on his plate also is
how to help countries involved in war, conflict and violence—think of
Yemen, Mali, South Sudan, Myanmar, the Central African Republic,
Afghanistan and Syria, to name a few.

Lowcock admitted there was a problem because these nations had the
weakest health system that made it easy for the disease to take hold. “So, if
anybody on the planet wants to be safe, the best approach is to keep the
people in the most vulnerable places safe, and we know that, if we act early,
we will have the best response,” he said.
 
In Syria, he said on March 30, the outbreak of the coronavirus was “just the
tip of the iceberg.” 
 
 
Some experts speculate that like smallpox introduced to Africa by
colonialists, the coronavirus came to developing nations through travelers on
holiday or business trips. For example, in Egypt, the first cases of the virus
appeared to stem from a cruise ship where locals who served tourists
contracted the disease, Business Insider said.

Expel the Messenger

We journalists are not safe either. The Committee to Protect Journalists has
produced a list of correspondents expelled from nations in one week only for
writing about the coronavirus.
The Foreign Press Association in New York objected to the U.S. expulsion
of some 90 Chinese journalists after Beijing did the same to several
American correspondents, saying neither country should be expelling
journalists.

“If you roll in the mud with opponents, bystanders can’t tell you apart,” says
Ian Williams, president of the FPA.