The US Department of Justice is remaining vigilant in detecting, investigating, and prosecuting wrongdoing related to the crisis.  In a memo to U.S. Attorneys, Attorney General Barr said, "The pandemic is dangerous enough without wrongdoers seeking to profit from public panic and this sort of conduct cannot be tolerated."

Fraud Alert: Be aware that criminals are attempting to exploit COVID-19 worldwide through a variety of scams.

While high-tech tools have enhanced modern contact tracing efforts, they are still no substitute for public health basics, said Michael J. Ryan, Chief Executive Director of the World Health Organization (WHO) Health Emergencies Programme, according to this article published by the World Economic Forum.

“IT tools do not replace the basic public health workforce that is going to be needed to trace, test, isolate and quarantine," Ryan said at a briefing Monday in Geneva.

Announcement by the World Bank on Ms. Anna Bjerde, a Swedish national, becoming the new World Bank Vice President for Europe and Central Asia on May 1^st, 2020. In this position, Ms. Bjerde will lead the World Bank’s strategic, analytical, operational and knowledge work in the region.

Opening remarks transcript, media briefing on COVID-19 by WHO Director-General, 4 May 2020

Criminal groups across Latin America have been forced to dig deep by the coronavirus pandemic and subsequent lockdown. Moving drugs and contraband, shaking down extortion victims and getting migrants across borders have all become far more difficult amid increased scrutiny and the lack of human activity.

Since  the  start  of  the  COVID-19  crisis,  demand  for  broadband  communication  services  has  soared, with some operators experiencing as much as a 60% increase in Internet traffic compared to before the crisis. •Network  operators  and  content  providers  have  to  date  successfully  maintained  services  and  efficiently utilized pre-existing capacity, and in certain cases expanded this capacity. •Additional short term measures are important to further enhance network stability and resilience, and to reduce the digital divide: for example, ensuring access for network operators and content providers to communication equipment, data centres, and mobility of technicians to customers’ homes. •Policy makers and regulators can alleviate congestion in mobile networks by releasing additional spectrum on a temporary basis, or by approving temporary commercial spectrum transactions between providers that put unused spectrum into service. •In the medium term, regulators could stimulate broadband providers to deploy more deeper into  the  networks  and  gradually  phase  out  xDSL  technologies,  where  possible,  and  alleviate  administrative burdens to ease network deployment. Keeping the Internet up and running in times of crisis

LAC country governments have reacted swiftly and preventatively to protect their citizens and contain COVID-19’s spread, which is likely to face its most difficult period in the region duringthe first weeks of May. Suchapreventative reactionis very important due to a number of particular regional challenges that LAC countries face in response to this pandemic, such as less equippedhealthcare systems and fragmented social safety nets. Yet, the region is alreadyfacingan economic crisis with less fiscal space than in 2008 to mitigate the deeper recession that will result. Focusing on the 15 countries that are a part of the Steering Group of the OECD LAC Regional Programme, this note providesan overview of the measures being enacted to mitigate the public health situation, including its social, economic, and governance dimensions

This policy brief discusses the role of testing for COVID-19 as part of any plan to lift confinement restrictions and prepare for a possible new wave of viral infections. If all confinement restrictions are lifted before a vaccine or effective treatments are developed without other measures to suppress new infections, the infection rate is expected to rebound rapidly. Crucially, quick suppression of infections requires testing more people to identify who is infected; tracking them to make sure they do not spread the disease further; and tracing with whom they have been in contact. This brief discusses how testing strategies can be used to achieve three main goals: 1)suppressing the resurgence of local outbreaks; 2)identifying people who have developed some form of immunity and can safely return to work; and 3)gaining intelligence on the evolution of the epidemic, including on when a threshold for herd immunity has been reached. The brief discusses what testscan be used for each goal, as well as practical implementation issues with testing strategies, including the opportunities and risks of using digital tools in this context.

Help is needed urgently to distribute vaccines worldwide amid dramatic shortages because of COVID-19 restrictions, the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) said on Friday. It has warned that youngsters’ lives “are at stake” owing to the dramatic decline in commercial flights and limited availability of charters.

Documento de la Misión Permanente de la República Dominicana ante la OEA, detallando las medidas adoptadas por el Gobierno Dominicano frente a la pandemia.

The document, which responds to the needs that the CIM identified during meetings with the ministers and high-level authorities on women and gender, experts from the follow-up mechanism to the Belém do Pará Convention (MESECVI) and women's organizations, offers a broad overview of the differentiated impacts of the crisis on women, paying special attention to the most vulnerable groups. In addition, it proposes guidelines for the design of actions and public policies based on the principles of equality and non-discrimination and the need to implement affirmative action measures.

In normal times, the world’s airlines would be carrying nearly 2 billion international passengers this year. That’s 5.7 million a day. But with the COVID-19 pandemic gripping the planet, these are not normal times. In its latest analysis of the economic impact of novel coronavirus on global commercial aviation, the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) warns of a potential overall reduction of 872 million to just over 1.3 billion international passengers – if signs of recovery emerge in late May.

International experts have advised the World Health Organization (WHO) to work to identify the animal origins of the virus behind the COVID-19 pandemic and its transmission to humans, the UN agency said.

The coronavirus crisis has hurried the arrival of the “future of work”. Lockdown has seen widescale remote working, increasing automation, a global revaluation of the care economy and a more visible lack of social protection within the gig economy.

There is an opportunity to “build back better” in 5 areas: reskilling and upskilling; supporting the jobs of tomorrow; prioritizing redeployment and re-employment; re-evaluating essential work and improving the quality of jobs; and resetting education, skills and jobs systems for the post-pandemic recovery.

The COVID-19 pandemic has laid bare in the cruelest way, the extraordinary precariousness and injustices of our world of work, says ILO Director-General, Guy Ryder.

The World Bank is proceeding at full speed with our COVID-19 support. Using the fast-track approach developed in April, the World Bank is currently assisting 93 countries with COVID-related health projects, with support in another 18 countries expected shortly. The broad support efforts can be viewed on this interactive map of the World Bank’s ongoing COVID-19 projects.

The COVID-19 fatality rate for people over 80-years-old, is five times the global average, the UN Secretary-General said on Friday, launching a new policy initiative to address this and many other challenges faced by the elderly, during and after the biggest public health crisis to hit the world in a century.

Tras declarar el Estado de Emergencia, el Presidente de la República, Iván Duque Márquez, anunció, el 18 de marzo de 2020, un paquete de medidas económicas y sociales para enfrentar la pandemia del coronavirus (COVID-19) en Colombia, el cual se ha venido revisando, actualizando y ampliando desde entonces.

Este documento detalla las acciones adoptadas por el Gobierno Colombiano ante la pandemia.

In response to the emergency caused by COVID-19, the high authorities of the Joint Summit Working Group (JSWG) met this week for the second time to ratify their commitment in support of the member states of the Americas and multilateralism as an instrument to address multiple challenges facing the region in the post-COVID-19 phase.

With this in mind, the General Secretariat of the Organization of American States (OAS) raised the need to work on a thematic agenda that incorporates the specific demands of regional organizations such as SICA (Central American Integration System) and CARICOM (Caribbean Community).

To avoid a global economic collapse and stave off a potential depression, Member States have taken dramatic and significant measures 2 to provide an economic safety net for citizens and businesses in distress, including through direct cash disbursements, short- and medium-term forgivable loans and deferment of payments, unemployment insurance and other measures.

In taking such emergency measures, Member States have necessarily relaxed safeguards by trading compliance, oversight and accountability for speed of response and achievement of rapid impact, thus leading to the creation of significant opportunities for corruption to thrive.