Maurice Obstfeld
G20 leaders have called for greater international collaboration on the public health response to COVID-19. But this commitment lacked the necessary detail to trigger fast concrete actions and provide guidance and reassurance for citizens. Instead, the leaders tasked health minsters to develop “urgent actions” by April 19-20, 2020. As the virus continues to spread, posing particular dangers to ill-equipped poorer countries, the ministers should quickly adopt specific, coordinated, and comprehensive steps in two categories: deploy international resources to attack COVID-19 more effectively, especially in lower-income countries, which must also be part of any coherent global containment strategy; and undertake a detailed international study of what has gone wrong in the current crisis.
