Global response

UN calls for global response to coronavirus pandemic

The intergovernmental organization described the disease as a "global health crisis unlike any in the 75-year history of the United Nations."

By QUINT FORGEY

The United Nations on Tuesday called for the launch of a "large-scale, coordinated and comprehensive multilateral response" to the coronavirus pandemic, an ambitious proposal that would amount to at least 10 percent of global gross domestic product.

In a 26-page report, the intergovernmental organization outlined an action plan to address the various socio-economic impacts of Covid-19, which it described as a "global health crisis unlike any in the 75-year history of the United Nations."

"This report is a call to action, for the immediate health response required to suppress transmission of the virus to end the pandemic; and to tackle the many social and economic dimensions of this crisis," the document states. "It is, above all, a call to focus on people — women, youth, low-wage workers, small and medium enterprises, the informal sector and on vulnerable groups who are already at risk."

The report also warns that it is "in everyone's interest to ensure that developing countries have the best chance of managing this crisis," or else the coronavirus "will risk becoming a long-lasting brake on economic recovery."

The plan's rollout accompanied the announcement of a "Covid-19 Response and Recovery Fund" established by U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres that is intended to "support efforts in low- and middle-income countries" to counter the coronavirus.

Guterres said in a statement that the "human crisis" of Covid-19 "demands coordinated, decisive, inclusive and innovative policy action from the world's leading economies — and maximum financial and technical support for the poorest and most vulnerable people and countries."

More than 862,000 people around the world have become infected by Covid-19, and at least 42,404 have perished as a result of the disease. Because of limited testing capacity and unreliable reporting data from certain foreign governments, experts agree the actual number of positive cases is much greater.

The United States, which has become the new epicenter of the pandemic, now has the most confirmed cases of any country in the world. But despite the demand by the U.N. for an international response to the coronavirus, the Trump administration has shown reluctance to enforce even national standards for managing its spread.

Instead, states have imposed a patchwork of directives ranging from shelter-in-place orders to less severe instructions, while the the federal government this week extended its recommended social-distancing guidelines for another month. Other suggested mitigation measures, including the wearing of masks by Americans in public, are also under consideration by the administration.