“Team 700” bursts from the loudspeaker multiple times a day at New York’s Elmhurst Hospital Center, according to The New York Times. It’s code for a patient on the verge of death. New York City hospitals are seeing an “apocalyptic surge” of COVID-19 patients. 13 people…
March 25, 2020
Asian-Americans are fighting a double battle amid the global pandemic—COVID-19, and escalating racism.
March 16, 2020
A decade ago, Haiti’s devastating earthquake was followed up with a cholera outbreak that caught the country completely off guard. Where did it start? At a now-infamous “Minustah” UN base, from which sick peacekeepers’ waste flowed into a key river. While the key to…
March 9, 2020
COVID-19 kept up its global assault over the weekend, driving Italy to lock down its northern region, bringing the first deaths to the US’s East Coast, and leaving more cruise ships in limbo, NPR reports.
March 5, 2020
A state-sponsored think tank in China is floating the idea of a Beijing-led global health organization to rival the WHO, according to emails seen by Axios. The move is part of China’s effort to rebrand itself as a global health leader—rather than a pariah—in light of the…
March 5, 2020
Thousands of desperate asylum seekers are being arrested, shot at, and tear-gassed this week as they attempt to enter Greece by land and by sea. One child has died, according to Médecins Sans Frontières. Greece has suspended asylum applications and is deporting those who…
March 3, 2020
In a rare move, a UN commission singled out Russia for its involvement in the mass killing of Syrians. The UN doesn’t usually attribute such attacks—it relies on the Syrian government and its Russian backers to distribute humanitarian relief. But this latest report …
February 28, 2020
During the 2014 Ebola outbreak, Liberian volunteers helped limit the scope of the devastating epidemic with a simple strategy: Get the word out. That approach could offer a template for other countries where government mistrust stymies outbreak response efforts.
February 26, 2020
Staff at some South African hospitals forced pregnant HIV-positive women into sterilization after giving birth. The Commission for Gender Equality confirmed 48 cases in 2015 where women signed consent forms for sterilization procedures under duress. The country has one of…
February 24, 2020
There are few jobs more dangerous than working inside Pakistan’s Balochistan coal mines. Each day thousands of workers—men and children—face explosions, collapsing mine walls, and suffocation. All for just dollars a day. “We work with no facilities, no training and…