'Unseen' News and Views
A logo is pictured outside a building of the World Health Organization (WHO) in Geneva, Switzerland, February 6, 2020. © Reuters / Denis Balibouse
15 Apr, 2020 (RT)* — Providing money to the “underfunded” World Health Organization is among the best ways to help develop a vaccine against Covid-19, German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas has said after Trump halted the WHO’s funding.
“Apportioning blame doesn’t help. The virus knows no borders,” Maas wrote on Twitter on Wednesday.
Trump ignored reports from U.S. intelligence agencies starting in January and February that warned of the scale and danger of the new coronavirus, according to the Washington Post. | Photo: EFE
– The coronavirus pandemic has set off an unprecedented institutional crisis at the United Nations – funds are drying up, key meetings are cancelled and the world body is fighting for its future.
Credit: United Nations
The chief management officer of the world body, Catherine Pollard, wrote a dire memo on 1 April, setting out the breadth of the crisis, the depth of the financial shortfall, and the emergency steps to be taken immediately to head off ruin.
(UN News)* — Self-isolation has driven more and more children to move online during the COVID-19 pandemic, leading to an unprecedented rise in screen time and raising safety risks for millions of young people, the UN said on Tuesday [14 April 2020].
(UN News)* — As the world battles the deadly COVID-19 pandemic and people are searching for clear facts and answers to questions, that could help save countless lives, “a dangerous epidemic of misinformation” is also spreading, the United Nations chief warned on Tuesday [14 April 2020].
– Vietnam, just south of coastal China, is the 15th most populous country in the world with 97 million people.According to its Ministry of Health (MoH), as of 13 April, there were 262 confirmed cases of COVID-19, with 144 recovering or discharged from hospitals, and no deaths.
Poor country, early action
With officials acting quickly to trace and test contacts, as well as quarantine and treat the infected, Vietnam contained the first wave of infections in January. Following a second wave of 41 new cases, Vietnam imposed a national isolation order on 31 March.
The country has already conducted more than 121,000 tests, with more than 75,000 people in quarantine or isolation.
After more than a dozen people, linked to Bach Mai Hospital in Hanoi, tested positive, authorities have been tracing contacts, advised more than 10,000 people who were at the hospital since March 12 to get tested, and locked down a nearby rural hamlet for 14 days.
In Tennessee Williams’ “The Glass Menagerie”, a stunned Amanda Wingfield enters the second scene repeating an enigmatic question: “Deception? Deception?” Amanda revels in the fantasy world of her genteel girlhood, when she cultivated good looks and witty conversation to entertain numerous gentlemen callers, all of whom went on to become rich and successful, except for her wayward and absent husband.
Marilyn Langlois
She envisions a gentleman caller entering their forlorn apartment any day now and swooping her painfully shy, disabled daughter, Laura, off to financial security and wedded bliss.
As a back-up plan, she sent Laura to typing and shorthand school to acquire her own means of support
Laura’s extreme nervousness caused her to break down the first day of class, and since then she secretly spent class time walking around town alone, to parks and museums, to avoid her mother’s anger.
When Amanda encounters evidence of Laura’s dishonesty, she can’t believe her own daughter, whom she has dutifully raised and fed, could deceive her so monstrously.
10 April 2020 (Wall Street International)* — I would like to ask you to take a moment, perhaps at home, to stop and rethink some of your narratives.
Let us reflect on some of the social narratives we live by. These stories are usually partly true, and thus very resistant to change, but they can be misleading if they are out of date or encourage us to ignore essential other parts of the bigger picture.
9 April 2020 (openDemocracy)* — Despite the theme of daily messages and memes we’re receiving, we are not “all in the same boat” – and this pandemic is proof.
HUMAN WRONGS WATCH 