President Joe Biden arrived in the East Room on Thursday for his first White House news conference with an agenda: the progress his administration has made in addressing the coronavirus pandemic and its economic repercussions.

But news beyond his control kept interrupting.

The room of socially distanced reporters had other topics on their minds. They repeatedly pressed him about his administration’s struggle to deal with an influx of migrants on the southern border. Two asked about the Senate filibuster that threatens to stall his legislative agenda. One asked about provocative missile firings by North Korea and another about fraught relations with China.

The predictable disconnect between his message and their questions was presumably one reason Biden waited until Day 65, later than any other modern president, to convene his first formal news conference. (It’s also a reason journalists believe the gatherings are important to hold, although it’s not entirely clear whether voters feel the same way.)

In an opening statement, Biden announced he was doubling his initial goal for COVID-19 vaccinations, now vowing to deliver 200 million injections to Americans during his first 100 days in office. He touted the impact of the $1.9 trillion relief package he has signed into law, which is already putting money in bank accounts and boosting estimates of economic growth. He noted that new unemployment claims had dropped.

“Help is here, and hope is on the way,” he said.

But perhaps it was a sign of his success on those fronts that not a single reporter mentioned either COVID-19 or the economic recovery. Instead, he was asked if he would meet former President Trump’s deadline to withdraw all U.S. troops from Afghanistan by May 1 – probably not, Biden said, but he suggested they would be out within a year – and about Republican efforts to enact restrictions on voting.

“This makes Jim Crow look like Jim Eagle,” he said of the hundreds of bills Republican state legislators have submitted to regulate voter access. His voice rising, he called the efforts “un-American” and “despicable.”

There were even two follow-up questions about whether he plans to run for a second term. He replied that he expected to, and with Vice President Kamala Harris on his ticket, although he cautioned that 2024 was distant and he was “a great respecter of fate.”

A majority of the questions dealt with immigration and the border, especially about the treatment of an influx of unaccompanied children. His administration has seemed unprepared to deal with the issue despite early signs it was going to pose a problem. Biden dismissed the assertion that his policies had encouraged families in Central America to send their children on the dangerous journey north, but he also rejected the notion that he should adopt a harder line to stem the flow.

“Well, look,” Biden said. “The idea that I’m going to say – which I would never do – when an unaccompanied child ends up (at) the border, we’re just going to let them starve to death and stay on the other side? No previous administration did that either – except Trump. I’m not going to do it. I’m not going to do it.”

He was, well, Biden-esque. It was the longest extemporaneous exchange of his presidency, stretching just past an hour. He expressed empathy, spoke conversationally, and twice caught himself going on too long and said he would stop – generally an observation public officials don’t say out loud. He didn’t use a teleprompter, but in responding to questions on Afghanistan and China he did seem to be reading from notes, presumably an effort to get each word precisely right on a sensitive issue of diplomacy.

He wasn’t always crisp, and his reference to “Jim Eagle” sparked fruitless Google searches to understand the reference – perhaps the Biden counterpart to Trump’s mystifying 2017 tweet about “covfefe.” But he was focused and responsive, countering jibes by his harshest critics that at age 78 he had lost a step.

The contrast with his predecessor was hard to miss. Trump was often deliberately provocative when he talked with reporters, reveling in barbed exchanges and sometimes attacking the intelligence and patriotism of those asking questions. Biden was low-key, even suggesting at one point that perhaps he was providing more details about policy than reporters wanted to hear.

When a reporter from Univision asked about the influx at the border, he thanked her for her reporting there.

Near the end, when no one had asked about his next big legislative priority, he pivoted from a question about gun control to a promotion for the sweeping economic recovery bill he plans to unveil Friday in Pittsburgh. When no one asked the question he wanted, he answered it anyway.

“The next major initiative … is to rebuild the infrastructure, both physical and technological infrastructure of this country, so that we can compete and create significant numbers of really good-paying jobs, really good-paying jobs,” he said. “There’s so much we can do.”

Source: www.usatoday.com

An estimated 1.4 million fewer people received care for tuberculosis (TB) in 2020 than in 2019, according to preliminary data compiled by the World Health Organization (WHO) from over 80 countries- a reduction of 21% from 2019. The countries with the biggest relative gaps were Indonesia (42%), South Africa (41%), the Philippines (37%), and India (25%).

“The effects of COVID-19 go far beyond the death and disease caused by the virus itself. The disruption to essential services for people with TB is just one tragic example of the ways the pandemic is disproportionately affecting some of the world’s poorest people, who were already at higher risk for TB,” said Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, WHO Director-General. “These sobering data point to the need for countries to make universal health coverage a key priority as they respond to and recover from the pandemic, to ensure access to essential services for TB and all diseases.”

Building up health systems so everyone can get the services they need is key. Some countries have already taken steps to mitigate the impact of COVID-19 on service delivery, by strengthening infection control; expanding the use of digital technologies to provide remote advice and support, and providing home-based TB prevention and care.

But many people who have TB are unable to access the care they need. WHO fears that over half a million more people may have died from TB in 2020, simply because they were unable to obtain a diagnosis.

This is not a new problem: before COVID-19 struck, the gap between the estimated number of people developing TB each year and the annual number of people officially reported as diagnosed with TB was about 3 million. The pandemic has greatly exacerbated the situation.

One way to address this is through restored and improved TB screening to rapidly identify people with TB infection or TB disease.  New guidance issued by WHO on World TB Day aims to help countries identify the specific needs of communities, the populations at highest risk of TB, and the locations most affected to ensure people can access the most appropriate prevention and care services. This can be achieved through the more systematic use of screening approaches that employ novel tools.

These include the use of molecular rapid diagnostic tests, the use of computer-aided detection to interpret chest radiography, and the use of a wider range of approaches for screening people living with HIV for TB. The recommendations are accompanied by an operational guide to facilitate roll-out.

But this will not be enough alone. In 2020, in his report to the United Nations General Assembly,  the UN Secretary-General issued a set of 10 priority recommendations that countries need to follow. These include activating high-level leadership and action across multiple sectors to urgently reduce TB deaths; increasing funding; advancing universal health coverage for TB prevention and care; addressing drug resistance, promoting human rights, and intensifying TB research.

And critically, it will be vital to reducing health inequities.

“For centuries, people with TB have been among the most marginalized and vulnerable. COVID-19 has intensified the disparities in living conditions and ability to access services both within and between countries,” says Dr. Tereza Kasaeva, Director of WHO’s Global TB Programme. “We must now make a renewed effort to work together to ensure that TB programs are strong enough to deliver during any future emergency – and look for innovative ways to do this.”

Source: www.who.int