January 11 – World Health Organization
Global health – Coronavirus, or Covid19
China reports its first death caused by a new coronavirus after dozens of cases of pneumonia outbreak takes place in the country’s central province of Hubei.
(Jan 21): The United States announces its first coronavirus case in Washington State.
(Jan 23): China places the city of Wuhan under quarantine with all public transportation cancelled.[1]
(Jan 30): The World Health Organization (WHO) declares the new coronavirus outbreak a global public health emergency. While nearly 99 percent of the more than 9,000 confirmed cases are in China, 98 people have been diagnosed in 18 other countries, including the United States.[2]
(Jan 31): The United States closes temporarily borders with China banning an entry for foreign nationals who travelled to China within the last 14 days.[3]
January 22 – World Health Organization (WHO)
Global health: coronavirus
China confirms an outbreak of a new deadly virus called coronavirus that started in Wuhan in central China’s Hubei province. So far there are 630 confirmed cases caused by the virus with17 deaths. The virus has now spread to China’s other provinces, as well as Thailand, Taiwan, Vietnam, Hong Kong, South Korea, with one case also in the United States. It is determined that the virus originated in a seafood market from infected animals, spreading then person to person through coughing and sneezing. The virus, known also as 2019-nCoV, is understood to be a new strain of coronavirus that has not previously been identified in humans; it causes fever, cough, shortness of breath and breathing difficulties. Severe cases lead to pneumonia, kidney failure and even death. The Sars virus that killed nearly 800 people globally in the early 2000s was also a coronavirus. To contain the virus, China resorts to variety of measures, such as travel restrictions, canceling all large-scale events, closing tourist attractions and schools, and ordering to wear masks.[4]
(Jan 31): The number of coronavirus cases has surged to 10,000 surpassing that of the Sars epidemic in 2003. Most of them are in China, with about 100 worldwide. The virus has killed 213 – all in China. However, the University of Hong Kong puts the estimates at 75,000 cases. The World Health Organization (WHO) declares a global health emergency over the coronavirus outbreak.[5]
More about coronavirus from CDC
Coronavirus: What are viruses? And how do they spread?
January 24 – Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO)
Environment: locust
East Africa is invaded by devastating and an unprecedented in size swarm of locust that is threatening food security, malnutrition and livelihoods of millions of people in the region. The UN’s Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO) calls on the international community to help east African countries fight these food-devouring insects, which can travel up to 93 miles in a day with each adult insect eating its own weight in food daily. FAO says a swarm the size of Paris could eat the same amount of food as half the population of France in a single day. The swarms of locust came from Yemen across the Red Sea. To battle the insects, insecticide is being sprayed from aircrafts.[6]
How East Africa is battling devastating locust swarms
March 11 – World Health Organization (WHO)
Global health – Coronavirus, Covid-19
The World Health Organization (WHO) declares the coronavirus outbreak a pandemic, which is defined as worldwide spread of a new disease for which most people do not have immunity.
(Mar 29): The global death toll from the coronavirus surpassed 30,000 deaths.[7]
History of Past Pandemics
How the Virus Got Out (graphic presentation)
How South Korea Flattened the Curve
April 14 – World Health Organization (WHO) / UNICEF
Global Health: Coronavirus, or Covid-19
U.S. President Trump announces plans to halt funding for the World Health Organization (WHO), accusing the agency of “severely mismanaging and covering up” the coronavirus crisis.
(Apr 20): UNICEF appeals for an additional $92.4 million to help fight the coronavirus pandemic in the Middle East and North Africa, and to aid children in these conflict-battered regions.
(Apr 27): The head of the WHO expresses concern about growing coronavirus outbreaks in Africa, Eastern Europe, Latin America and some Asian countries.
(Apr 30): The WHO says it is urgently investigating a potential link between the coronavirus and Kawasaki syndrome, an illness of unknown cause that primarily affects children under 5.[8]
April 12 – OPEC
In coordination with the United States, the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), Russia, and other allied oil producers in a group known as OPEC Plus agree to reduce their production by 9.7 million barrels a day in May and June, about 10 percent of the world’s output. Since the beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic demand for oil worldwide fell by 35 percent. This is the largest production cut ever negotiated in an effort to stabilize the oil prices and help struggling economies in the Middle East and Africa, but also oil companies around the world that employ 10 million workers. Other oil countries outside OPEC, such as Canada, Brazil, Norway, and the United States, have been also cutting production. The oil prices that used to go above $100 a barrel are expected to stay below $40 for some time.[9]
More on how a drop in oil prices caused by the Covid-19 pandemic affects various economies
May 10 – World Health Organizations (WHO) / United Nations
Global Health – coronavirus, or COVID-19
Confirmed coronavirus cases around the world surpass 4 million. The global death toll reaches nearly 280,000.
(May 13): A United Nations report forecasts that the coronavirus pandemic will shrink the world economy by 3.2 percent this year, the sharpest contraction since the Great Depression in the 1930s.
(May 19): President Trump raises tension between the World Health Organizations (WHO) and the United States by threatening to make permanent a temporary funding freeze on American donations to WHO, accusing it of being the agency of helping China cover up the coronavirus outbreak.
(May 22): A new study published in The Lancet found that hydroxychloroquine, a drug that President Trump said he was taking as a preventive strategy and has publicly touted, does not help COVID-19 patients, and may increase deaths. (Article below)
(May 31): Global coronavirus cases surpassed 6 million as the death toll worldwide neared 370,000.[10]
A rush to make a vaccine against coronavirus
Another large study finds no benefit to hydroxychloroquine for COVID-19
July 7 – World Health Organization (WHO)
U.S. withdrawal from WHO
The Trump Administration officially notifies the Congress and the United Nations of the United States’ withdrawal from the World Health Organization. Lawmakers from both parties criticize the move in the middle of the public health crisis due to the coronavirus pandemic. President Trump justifies the withdrawal over WHO’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Critics say the move could interfere with clinical trials that are essential to the development of vaccines, further undermine the U.S.’s international standing, and make it harder to work with other countries to stop viruses before they get to the United States. The withdrawal is expected to take effect July 6, 2021.[11]
October 9 – The Nobel Prize
The Norwegian Nobel Committee awards the Nobel Peace Prize for 2020 to the World Food Program (WFP), a United Nations agency, “for its efforts to combat hunger, for its contribution to bettering conditions for peace in conflict-affected areas and for acting as a driving force in efforts to prevent the use of hunger as a weapon of war and conflict.”[12]
Combined with the coronavirus pandemic, some countries have experienced a dramatic spike in the number of people living on the brink of starvation. But the WFP has intensified its efforts, stating, “Until the day we have a medical vaccine, food is the best vaccine against chaos.”[13]
Background
The World Food Program is the world’s largest humanitarian organization addressing hunger and promoting food security. In 2019, 135 million people around the world suffered from acute hunger, the highest number in many years. Most of the increase was caused by war and armed conflict. In that year, the WFP provided assistance to nearly 100 million people in 88 countries.[14]
Nobel Prizes 2020