A new report from the Global Preparedness Monitoring Board looks at the biggest lessons from the worldâs response to COVID-19 â and the urgent actions we need to take now....
1. How COVID-19 is affecting the globe
Confirmed cases of COVID-19 have now passed 37.4 million globally, according to the Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Center. The number of confirmed deaths stands at over 1.07 million.
In the US, confirmed cases have risen to 7,694,865, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), an increase of 53,363 cases from its previous count. The number of deaths rose by 577 to 213,614.
President Donald Trump said on Sunday he had fully recovered from COVID-19 and was not an infection risk for others. "Iâm in great shape,â he told Fox News.
Cases in India have now topped 7 million, after the health ministry reported 74,383 new infections in the previous 24 hours. A rise in infections in southern states is offsetting a drop in western regions.
Asia-Pacific countries including Singapore, Australia and Japan are easing some international travel restrictions as coronavirus cases slow.
Chinaâs Qingdao city will conduct COVID-19 tests for its population of more than 9 million people over five days, after new cases appeared linked to a hospital treating imported infections....
The unexpected social and economic challenges brought by the coronavirus pandemic have given increased urgency to questions about the purposes of a university education and the kinds of graduates that society needs. Much of this debate has focused on the extent to which university degrees lead to graduate jobs and higher graduate salaries.
For example, in July, UK education secretary, Gavin Williamson, announced that financial support for universities affected by COVID-19 would be conditional on their scrapping courses that did not lead to skilled graduate jobs.
The implication of these announcements is that the central purpose of a university education is to produce employable, high-earning graduates.
My research examines what a university education is for, the principles that should inform its design, and how its quality can effectively be measured. Rather than the employment and salaries of graduates, the central educational purpose of a university education is to transform students through their engagement with knowledge....
Unaddressed, climate change will entail a potentially catastrophic human and economic toll, but itâs not too late to change course.
Global temperatures have increased by about 1°C since the pre-industrial era because of heat-trapping green-house gases accumulating in the atmosphere. Unless strong action is taken to curb emissions of these gases, global temperatures could increase by an additional 2â5°C by the end of this century. Keeping temperatures to levels deemed safe by scientists requires bringing net carbon emissions to zero on net globally by mid-century.
â¦economic policy tools can pave a road toward net zero emissions by 2050 even as the world seeks to recover from the COVID-19 crisis.
In the latest World Economic Outlook we make the case that economic policy tools can pave a road toward net zero emissions by 2050 even as the world seeks to recover from the COVID-19 crisis. We show that these policies can be pursued in a manner that supports economic growth, employment and income equality....
