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MEdia

Voice of America

Canada Debates Closing Refugee Road

Critics of the policy that has brought large numbers of refugees to Roxham Road seem to think the road “should be shut down and that would be the end of everything, which is unrealistic in light of how long the Canada-U.S. border is,” Neve told VOA. Neve argues that changes need to be made to the Safe Third Country Agreement. The agreement, which came into force in 2004, requires those seeking refugee protection to request it in the first safe country they arrive in, unless they qualify for an exception to the agreement. However, refugees can get around the agreement, said Laurie Trautman, an expert with the Canadian Global Affairs Institute.

February 7, 2023

What the WHO’s new treaty could mean for the next pandemic

“It has more heart and brain than I expected,” says Kelley Lee, scientific co-director at the Pacific Institute on Pathogens, Pandemics and Society in Burnaby, Canada. “But it still has insufficient teeth and an insufficient spine to ensure that we’ll definitely have a better response next time.”

February 3, 2023

How is the World Health Organization funded, and why does it rely so much on Bill Gates?

“They need to be more transparent in how they decide on where their funds are spent. They need to be self-critical about the short-termism, skewing of priorities, unanticipated effects of funding one issue over another, and the siloing of global health efforts. They must want to be part of the solution to global health governance fragmentation, and not part of the problem”.

Academic Organisation

Migration Policy Institute

January 24, 2023

Uncoordinated Border Management Approaches Taken during COVID-19 Pandemic Demonstrate Need for a Clear, Agreed Approach to Risk Analysis

The report, Using Risk Analysis to Shape Border Management: A Review of Approaches during the COVID-19 Pandemic, offers lessons learned and recommendations, including a proposed decision instrument that could improve the use of risk analysis for border management during future public-health emergencies.

South China Morning Post

January 21, 2023

Explainer | How bad is China’s Covid crisis and should the rest of the world be worried?

“The key information to know about these subvariants in China is whether they are more transmissible, are they capable of immune escape, and are they capable of causing severe disease, which appears to be the case among Chinese nationals although it is unclear whether increased severity extends to people fully vaccinated and people vaccinated with non-Chinese vaccines”

The Conversation

January 15, 2023

Canada’s new COVID test rules: Targeting travellers from China will not stop globally circulating Omicron subvariant

Should a new variant emerge, targeted measures like those now being applied would still have limited preventive effect. This is because global patterns of travel mean passengers mix with large numbers of other people along their journeys, often transiting through several countries. Moreover, reliance on a single 48-hour pre-departure testing window overlooks variable incubation periods, false negatives, or new exposures during the time window prior to departure.