In 2020, a coalition of international, regional, and national partners rapidly established international coordination to deliver strategic, technical, and operational support through existing and newly created mechanisms and partnerships. This effort aimed to support the scaling up of preparedness and response operations at national level across the nine major pillars of the public health response. In 2021, global and regional support from WHO and partners must evolve to reflect the evolving needs and capacities of countries, respond to the emerging challenges of this new phase of the pandemic at community level, and realize the full potential of new vaccines, therapeutics…

VIRUSES ALL AROUND US.

What comes to mind when you hear the word “virus”? Perhaps the common cold, a cold sore, or maybe even a global pandemic, such as the one we are living in now, caused by a coronavirus that may have originated in bats. In fact, viruses are ever-present in the living world, infecting, affecting, and interacting with all organisms, from the miniscule to the gigantic, and can be found in every ecosystem on the planet. They are as ubiquitous and essential to our lives as the air we breathe, the water we drink, and the food we…

Senior Public Management Specialist.

Reference Number 210050

Position LevelIS 5

DepartmentCentral and West Asia DepartmentDivisionPublic Management, Financial Sector, & Trade Division, CWRD

LocationAsian Development Bank Headquarters

Date Posted Friday, February 19, 2021Closing DateFriday, March 5, 2021 11:59 p.m. (2359 Manila Time, 0800 GMT)

IMPORTANT INFORMATION:

Close relatives1 of ADB staff, except spouses of international staff, are not eligible for recruitment and appointment to staff positions. Applicants are expected to disclose if they have any relative/s by consanguinity/blood, by adoption and/or by affinity/marriage presently employed in ADB.

1Close relatives refer to spouse, children, mother, father, brother and sister, niece, nephew, aunt and uncle

Staff on…

Generally, in most MSMEs, employment experienced no change during the first month following the lockdown (65.7% of micro, 50.8% of small, and 66.3% of medium-sized firms), but MSMEs began laying off employees at a relatively early stage to survive (68.0% of micro, 59.5% of small, and 78.6% of medium-sized firms), especially in manufacturing (69.4%) and services (67.3%). The larger the firm size, the more working options were available. Among medium-sized firms, 41.1% reduced their employee working hours, followed by 34.8% of small firms and 26.5% of microenterprises. Work-from-home was not a preferred option for many MSMEs. Smaller firms had much…

In any public health emergency such as COVID-19, countries should strive for a lean supply chain, distributing vaccines as quickly as possible to vaccination sites. This may include bypassing regional or district storage locations and holding very limited stock at a time, or more frequent delivery of vaccines to the storage points/sites.

In the context of COVID-19 vaccine deployment, the following will facilitate supply chain efficiency:staff are trained and can demonstrate ability to perform tasks according to standard protocols;policies, guidelines and SOPs are clearly written, updated based on vaccine profiles, and disseminated to concerned parties through a variety of channels…

The ACA’s Section 1557, which provides anti-discrimination protections, has been fraught with challenges. Section 1557 incorporates nondiscrimination protections from four separate civil rights statutes. This vague language allows administrations to offer widely differing interpretations of healthcare anti-discrimination protections.

In a 2016 rule, the Obama administration interpreted Section 1557 broadly, including protections based on gender identity and sexual orientation, as well as specific language access requirements. Many of these protections were eliminated in a 2020 rule promulgated by the Trump administration.

It’s time to end these fluctuating standards. …

Over the course of the COVID-19 pandemic, researchers have found coronavirus infections in pet cats and dogs and in multiple zoo animals, including big cats and gorillas. These infections have even happened when the f was using personal protective equipment.

More disturbing, in December the United States Department of Agriculture confirmed the first case of a wild animal infected with SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19. Researchers found an infected wild mink in Utah near a mink farm with its own COVID-19 outbreak.

Are humans transmitting this virus to wildlife? …

A new briefing from the Edmond J. Safra Center for Ethics, New America, and Brown University School of Public Health, draws from a growing body of evidence to recommend that K–12 schools should remain open in the pandemic, even under heightened infection rates.

Updated from recommendations put forth in July, the report from a group of public health and education experts, including Harvard Graduate School of Education Professors Danielle Allen and Meira Levinson, suggests that rather than the local infection rate, it’s a school or district’s capacity to maintain infection control protocols that’s the best guide for determining the safety…