The global impacts of Covid-19

While nearly 82% of Europeans are fully vaccinated, this is the case for just 11% of Africans. This vaccine gap could overshadow discussions between the heads of state of the two continents at the summit to be held in Brussels on 17 and 18 February between the European Union and the African Union. France, which currently holds the Presidency of the Council of the EU, has been called upon to act to waive patents on Covid-19 vaccines. Emmanuel Macron is the champion of the “global licence” project.

Four civil society representatives ask MEP Anna Cavazzini (Greens/EFA) about the Covid-19 vaccine patent waiver, as the wane of some countries’ Omicron winters poses a new threat to global vaccine equity.

We are experiencing two very different pandemic realities between low-income and high-income countries. Unfortunately, instead of seeking a solidarity-based response, the international community has once again demonstrated its disunity in this health crisis. The task now is to regain credibility and rebuild trust.

The travel restrictions imposed by the European Union on people traveling from southern Africa after the discovery of the Omicron variant, will potentially have a long-term impact on the EU-AU relations.

What does care mean in a Covid-19 pandemic context? Why does care fail and gender-based violence becomes even more resilient in itself, despite being conceptualised as a "pandemic within a pandemic" in a context of intensifying sexism, culturalist stereotypes and xenophobia, not to mention social policing and the intensive securitization of borders and mobility?

Covid outbreaks in abattoirs and processing plants are just the latest in a long list of problems in the meat industry. Low wages, hard work, and precarious employment are the price that workers pay to supply us with cheap meat. The industry is attempting to dodge its responsibility to provide decent conditions for its staff.

Given the global dimension of the Covid-19 pandemic and the fact that the number of mutations is increasing worldwide, we must overcome our selfish national and economic interests. Successful pandemic response requires coordinated global action based on coordinated decision-making, fair and transparent vaccine delivery processes and know-how sharing.

The outbreak of the pandemic could have spelled disaster for Venezuela, already two decades into a political, social, economic and health crisis. The combination of a collapsed national health system and economy, a complex humanitarian emergency, a continuous stream of migration, an internal political conflict with international ramifications, a population with high levels of malnutrition, has seriously hindered the development of a successful vaccination programme. Thus far,  Venezuela has administered the fewest number of Covid-19 vaccinations in relation to its population size of all the countries in South America.

Health inequality increased sixfold in South Africa under COVID-19, suggesting that the crisis affected the health of the poor far more than the relatively well-off. Race is not a significant predictor of vaccine hesitancy, but trusting social media as an information source is positively correlated with vaccine hesitancy. South Africa has pushed hard against opposition to the proposal for a waiver of IP for Covid-19 technologies at the World Trade Organisation (WTO).

The rate of COVID-19 vaccination in Israel is one of the highest in the world. However, vaccine rates are not evenly distributed among the different population groups. Arab citizens and the Ultra-Orthodox population, who have suffered the most from the pandemic, are vaccinated at lower rates than the general public. Moreover, social media disinformation campaigns that have characterized the COVID-19 pandemic in Israel, in general, and the vaccine, in particular, has been one of the causes of vaccine hesitancy.

The Covid-19 pandemic has become Chile’s most consequential public health challenge in a century. Chile’s measures included guidance regarding, among other items, education, health (sick leaves, diagnoses, hospital capacity, partial and spatially targeted lockdowns), mass events, border controls, supply and transportation. Since then, the evolution of the disease in the country has been similar to that of other countries around the world, with periods when cases increased followed by periods when cases declined, yet without ever declining to a point when one would assume the emergency was over.

The Covid-19 vaccine rollout played a big part in the Conservatives’ success at the 2021 local elections, but the shrivelling of political debate in the UK and an appetite for big government also played a role.

The momentous African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA), which went into effect on 1 January 2021, demonstrates the continent’s desire to carve its own economic destiny. But as Africa’s biggest trading partner, the European Union’s actions will have a strong impact on the project’s chances of success. The EU’s historical record suggests it would benefit from more serious listening to what its African partners want on trade.

No country is safe from COVID-19 until all countries are safe from COVID-19. To state the obvious: To overcome a pandemic of this magnitude, vaccines must be made available quickly, cheaply, and fairly.

Amidst the Covid-19 pandemic, the government-sponsored disinformation engine is operating at full capacity in Hungary, scapegoating and intimidating critical voices and triggering death threats against academics and intellectuals.

Europe and the world have been hit by transnational crises before the Covid-19 pandemic. And mostly all of them had a severe impact on mobility and transport.

Efforts to follow social distancing and mask-wearing rules have been crucial to South Korea’s success in containing the Covid-19 pandemic, but experts worry that other measures—such as sharing data from confirmed cases—have stigmatised and harmed marginalised communities. 

The global pandemic became a linchpin for many health-tech startup companies that were struggling to find their purpose. In 2020, the industry saw record funding and attention – and the need to balance investor’s expectations with public health concerns.

This article takes a closer look at some examples of HealthTech companies and startups in the Asia Pacific region who have addressed the Covid-19 pandemic with their solutions.

This article takes a closer look at some examples of TravelTech startups in Asia-Pacific and North America that have accelerated their business or had a market launch or even expansion because of Covid-19. 

What are the challenges in Tunisia of deploying effective Covid-19 measures while remaining committed to the protection of individual rights and liberties for the whole period of the crisis? Mahassen Segni interviews Professor Wahid Ferchichi, founder of the Tunisian Association for the Defence of Individual Liberties.

As citizens in Senegal come together to fight misinformation and support healthcare workers, more participation demands more accountability.

Governments, the private sector and other organizations increasingly collect massive amounts of data, some for the public good, other times not. A consistent framework could ensure data use is both beneficial to the public interest and sufficiently protected against misuse.

US President-elect Joe Biden is preparing for a long-overdue national effort to curb the spread of the coronavirus. That may include facilitating and promoting widespread use of smartphone-based tracing apps that have been developed and distributed in a state-by-state patchwork.

Most EU countries have worked out the kinks in their contact-tracing apps and now offer them as part of efforts to track coronavirus infection and break the chain of transmission. The next step is ensuring the apps can connect across borders.

Forced to follow a “no vaccine, no classes” policy, the Philippines has implemented distance-learning programs that exacerbate existing inequalities.

As contact-tracing apps prove less useful than hoped in many countries, other digital tools such as wearable fitness trackers are gaining in popularity for detecting or tracing coronavirus infection. But a reliance on such technologies comes with big questions about effectiveness and privacy.

In Asia, the pandemic has accelerated efforts to keep citizens informed through prompt and extensive data sharing. However, this new openness has also led to concerns regarding transparency, data protection, and democratic participation.

Conspiracy theories might seem funny in ordinary times. But against the backdrop of escalating far-right attacks worldwide in recent years and now the pandemic, these myths have spiraled into a dangerous pattern of radicalization.

Green recovery. Social protection. Smart containment. Decarbonisation. Putting progress in climate action at par with measuring GDP. Creative capacity. These phrases have been running through conversations these days around changing Southeast Asia's template for development in the post-COVID era.

False news is a major threat to the Covid-19 response in DRC. Government distrust, lockdown, and increased social media access accelerate the spread of misinformation and disinformation in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

Senegal is not spared the consequences of Covid-19. How does Covid-19 change the conditions under which food is produced and traded? We take a closer look at food systems in Africa talked to an expert on sustainable development issues in rural areas.

Increased use of digital communication tools during the Covid-19 lockdowns has made working from home acceptable – and even more sociable – for many people with disabilities. But technology still has a long way to go toward inclusion. Four professionals talk about the pros and cons.

The coronavirus lockdown caught the IT infrastructure of the European Parliament unprepared for such severe emergency conditions. The EU's parliamentary work comes with distinct political sensitivities and responsibilities for transparency that complicate the legislative process. Any measures taken to introduce digital tools now and in the future must safeguard vital democratic principles. 

The coronavirus pandemic highlights the challenges of outdated congressional practices that needed to be addressed long ago. Individual members' offices and leadership of the House and Senate should reevaluate how technology can help US lawmakers better serve their constituents and their country.

The pandemic has increased calls for a national ID system to improve access to relief funds. Experts say that the proposed plan may not work and may put data security and privacy at risk.

In Singapore and South Korea, fact-checking initiatives have been effective in fighting Covid-19 disinformation. But other tactics – like confusing or overly broad laws – could be used to maintain political power. 

From rural live-streaming to coordinating medical care, technology platforms in China have taken on a central role during the Covid-19 crisis. The pandemic accelerated trends that further cement these companies as key infrastructure providers working in close tandem with the state – but this cozy relationship comes at a cost to many.

Covid-19 has accelerated innovation in the Nigerian health tech sector, providing opportunities for growth in an industry that has typically lacked investment, government endorsement, and attention.

Federal, state, and city governments are working with technology companies to monitor citizens during the pandemic, with no guarantee of what will happen to the data after the crisis passes. The irony is that Brazil already has a law that would protect the right to privacy – but the government is trying to delay its implementation.

From legal challenges to delays, leaks and policy reversals, the UK has stumbled in its tech response to the pandemic. A full assessment of what happened will take time, but the record thus far already offers lessons for the future.

The German government must fight for a Real Green Deal for Europe that combines economy and ecology and sets the course for a socio-ecological market economy. Dr. Ellen Ueberschär describes what that could look like.

Open-source software, transparent communication, and public-private cooperation with both large and small companies—the development of the German contact tracing app could be a model for future government IT projects.

Amidst the Covid-19 crisis in Egypt, a recent chain of events reveals the systemic violence that the regime of President al-Sisi exerts. To address those developments, what’s behind them and how international actors might respond to them, we are speaking with Amr Magdi, Middle East researcher at Human Rights Watch.

The fight against Covid-19 in Brazil has developed into an ideological battle, pitting President Jair Bolsonaro - who wants to reopen the country - against those who defend the WHO protocols. Brazil’s WhatsApp culture has opened the gate to a flood of rumors and fake news, some of which can allegedly be traced back to Bolsonaro’s inner circle. But the favelas are seeking their own solutions to counter disinformation.

COVID-19 has become a moment of opportunism for Indian e-commerce companies to consolidate their market power, insert themselves into local supply chains and co-opt neighborhood stores. Policy interventions are urgently needed to preserve the autonomy of the traditional retail sector and prevent Big Tech’s takeover of local economies.

The pandemic demonstrated once more the persistence of gender inequality in our society. The disease outbreak and lockdown affected the situation of women around the globe. In Russia, the issue of women’s rights is acute as well.

In Israel, as in other parts of the world, the COVID-19 virus crisis is not only a health challenge.

While restrictions against the pandemic are gradually being lifted throughout Europe, the situation in Armenia is worsening. The capacities of hospitals are exhausted. Armenia is in a de facto state of emergency as a result of the pandemic, which could turn into a political crisis. Our colleague Eviya Hovhannisyan from Yerevan reports the current developments in the interview.

The Heinrich-Böll-Stiftung and the Center for Democracy and Technology hosted a online seminar on COVID-19 contact-tracing apps in the U.S., the EU, and Asia on Wednesday, June 10th at 9am ET.

At the beginning of 2020 it looked as if the Greek economy would recover with above average growth from 10 years of financial crisis.The corona pandemic has shattered these prospects. Greek society is now hoping for support from the German Council Presidency.

The COVID-19 crisis has exposed the ugly consequences of digital inequities around the world. The most privileged can rely on online tools as digital lifeboats while those with limited or no access are left adrift. The definition of internet access as a human right has to be expanded to include access to universal, reliable and affordable high-speed internet.

In Colombia too, public life and the economy have been at a standstill due to the coronavirus pandemic. There is, however, hope that the early measures taken to stem the pandemic will pay off in the medium and long term. The country is currently between hope and fear regarding the measures to ease the social and economic lockdown in place since March.

In the shadows of the Covid-19-crisis, refugees and irregular migrants in Europe’s neighbouring countries are afraid for their very existence and terrified of long-term detention in reception camps. In Tunisia, political provisions are being put into place and emergency plans negotiated to deal with migrants and refugees on their way to Europe.

The coronavirus pandemic forced half of the German working population to work from home. A majority was happy with the move, an early study indicates. If the broadband expansion catches up in the countryside, many might never go back.

The October uprising has paved the way for new constitution in Chile. However, the virus has forced citizens’ organisations into quarantine and is delaying constitutional change. What happens next?

In its response to coronavirus, Britain has fared substantially worse than most other countries. The roots of this failure are in the neoliberal consensus – a consensus that is now vanishing.

The disappointment in Italian society in relation to the EU at the beginning of the corona crisis has now changed to confidence. Now the expectations of financial solidarity are particularly directed towards the forthcoming German EU Presidency.

A fluctuating economy, high unemployment, enormous violence against women and girls – what was already a difficult situation in Mexico has been made far worse by the coronavirus pandemic. Dawid Danilo Bartelt, Head of the Mexico City Office, describes the country’s approach to tackling coronavirus.

Transformative responses is a transnational network which aims to increase our systems' resilience by addressing the socio-economic and ecological challenges at the intersection of finance, ecology and inequality with concrete actions and policies to mitigate crisis and initiate structural reform.

The world's attention is fully focused on tackling the Covid-19 pandemic. But in the shadows of this crisis, Israel is quietly planning to annex parts of the Westbank.  How likely is annexation and what will its consequences be?

The Covid-19 pandemic affects different groups of people differently. It is, however, possible to argue that asylum seekers, migrants and refugees scattered across the globe are among the most vulnerable groups to the outbreak. Yet, what are the key challenges facing migrants and refugees in Turkey, particularly challenges in accessing healthcare services during the pandemic?

The Indian government faces strong pushback from civil society for mandating the use of a privacy-intrusive COVID-19 tracing app. The heated legal debate resembles the previous one over the country’s controversial biometric ID system Aadhaar.

A strong sense of regional sovereignty in the Canadian health care system may lead to different choices for technologies to track and contain the spread of the coronavirus. A multiplicity of non-interoperable apps could put their effectiveness in question and could create inconsistent approaches to privacy.

El Salvador, like many other countries in Central America and the world, is in a situation bordering on tragedy, facing a pandemic under the immense structural failures resulting from centuries of environmental and human exploitation. 

Tech will not free us from coronavirus, but it can provide us with helpful tools – if we foster an open and democratic debate on how to use it. 

The COVID-19 pandemic has spurred the use of digital technologies that are shaping people's lives and interaction with society. The development of apps to monitor the movements and health status of individual citizens will have long-term implications for privacy and safety. Nowhere is this more visible than in Asia.

In its fight against the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic, India is facing its greatest social and economic challenge since independence in 1947. Persisting political and social contradictions have become more visible than ever before. Media reports are shifting the focus away from areas that really matter for the preservation of a democratic social fabric. Yet the current situation also leaves a ray of hope. 

Disinformation is out of control as malicious actors seek to capitalise on the Covid-19 pandemic. To date, EU schemes to tackle disinformation have focused on self regulation, but there are widespread concerns about how the EU is managing the crisis. 

The debate over the data storage model of a coronavirus tracing app shows how the German government’s search for digital infection control tools became caught up between public health officials, privacy experts and the US tech industry. 

Quiet streets and empty malls on Friday nights. In the eyes of overseas visitors, the city might still seem lively, but for Hongkongers like me the vibrant buzz of this city has been replaced by fear, personal isolation, and the smell of rancid surgical masks.

With low testing rates, but rising numbers of infections, Myanmar’s government is virtually flying blind trying to get on top of Covid-19 with a lockdown. The collapse of clothing exports to Europe has led to a sharp rise in unemployment, while armed conflicts continue, mostly in Rakhine State, and critical coverage of it has become a criminal offence.

The effects of the Covid-19 pandemic and the global economy are dramatic. The virus is shaking all major economies simultaneously. At the same time,  the crisis is acting as an accelerator for the developing countries that were already highly in debt. An interview with Barbara Unmüßig, President of the Heinrich Böll Foundation, on the latest developments.

COVID-19 uniquely affects women. Here are many of the ways it does.

During COVID-19, Jordan imposed one of the strictest lockdowns globally.  Egyptian workers residing in the country were hit hard as they have lost their jobs and struggled to make a living ever since, while being stuck in adverse housing conditions and unable to return home.

The coronavirus crisis is leading to massive social distortions in the US. It is increasing the existing structural inequalities and discriminations in the US economy and society. 

The coronavirus pandemic has ruthlessly laid bare the faults in the US social welfare system. Congress has put together a support package worth more than $2 trillion, aiming to put relief in place quickly. But as it won’t be able to solve the structural problems, there will be limits to its implementation.  

The corona pandemic has reached Syria. Anna Fleischer, Program Coordinator for Syria, explains why the virus could hit the country extremely hard and above all endanger those imprisoned. 

We are living in difficult times and while the number of human COVID-19 infections continues to be on the rise, there is one patient that should not be forgotten: our parliamentary democracy. Judging from what we have seen in the past few weeks, the patient is in a serious condition and the prognosis is unclear.

Erik Marquardt got a first-hand impression of the inhuman conditions in the Moria refugee camp, where more than 20,000 people live in the most miserable conditions. An outbreak of coronavirus would be devastating. In order to draw more attention to this issue, he has co-created the Leave no One Behind campaign.

On 2 March 2020, Senegal reported its first case of coronavirus. This new form of COVID-19 has spread around the globe, with the declaration of a pandemic by the World Health Organization (WHO) on 11 March. The public health crisis is wreaking havoc upon all social and economic aspects of people’s lives in every corner of the world, including a notable impact on gender inequality. 

President Vladimir Putin is facing the greatest challenge of his political career: the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic in Russia is expected to peak in the next few weeks. Johannes Voswinkel, Head of our Moscow office, reports on timid action, an unexpected crisis manager and the fears of breaking into the reserves.

Viktor Orbán uses the Covid-19 pandemic as a pretext to complete his authoritarian regime. These moves are not purely the domestic political problems of Hungary – an authoritarian state within the EU could be deadly dangerous for the entire project. Germany has a very important role to play in the current situation. 

It is still too early to learn lessons from the coronavirus crisis. However, there is one term that comes to mind when addressing the inevitable directions of political thinking after the crisis: resilience. But what exactly does it mean and how will it influence the political agenda?

As European countries turn to apps to contain the pandemic, the EU must weigh the public health emergency against its own data protection rules. Policymakers and experts on data protection and privacy in Brussels warn that tracing and monitoring technology can undermine fundamental rights.

Nigeria stands at the very brink of its own COVID-19 epidemic. However, the country has been in the grips of serious crisis for weeks: the collapse in oil prices has led to brutal budget cuts and provokes a recession in the country, which depends heavily on oil exports. The timing could not be worse in view of the forthcoming pandemic challenges.   

App developers and state governments in the United States are churning out new technologies for tracking the spread of the coronavirus. In the absence of a national privacy law, experts raise concerns about surveillance and scramble to define the boundaries for data collection during the pandemic.

Benjamin Netanyahu could not even win the third election held within one year. Now, he is using the coronavirus crisis to profile himself as an indispensable statesman and secure his power – to the detriment of Israeli democracy.

With only three day notice, South Africa went into full lockdown on the night from 26 to 27 March. What happened in the three days leading up the lockdown is highly impressive. Instead of everyone following the instinct of making provision for themselves, neighbourhood solidarity networks sprang up spontaneously.

With a series of digital measures introduced in response to the coronavirus pandemic, Morocco is creating a trade-off between ways to provide rapid support and the parallel development of digital control.

In post-Brexit Britain, the coronavirus crisis comes amid a crisis of confidence in its political leadership. The British public is now watching the National Health Service (NHS) trying to rise to the challenge after a decade of austerity.

Not only has the new coronavirus catapulted us out of our everyday lives, but the way the EU is handling the Covid-19 pandemic has made its inability to take action in times of crisis painfully apparent. Just as people are stranded at airports and railway stations, any hope that Europe is capable of pulling together has also been stranded in the last few weeks.

The ongoing pandemic of COVID-19 disease has brought about an extraordinary situation. Although the past decades have brought numerous challenges like terrorism or the climate change, the global spread of a disease for which there is neither a cure nor vaccination available is something that political leaders have no experience in tackling.

Italy was the first country in Europe to be affected by the Covid-19 virus. It was also the first democratic state that took measures to contain the epidemic – as it was still being called at the time, before it mutated into a pandemic. I

Coronavirus measures have made the usually bustling city of Paris a ghost town. Bars, cafes, restaurants and everything else have been closed down, with towers of empty chairs piled up behind the windows.