COVID ain't over

Ian Explains: COVID Ain't Over | GZERO World

We're not done with the pandemic — yet.

In the US, infections are up five-fold from a year ago, although both hospitalizations are down.

Although COVID will likely become endemic sometime this year in some parts of the world, the virus will still rage on everywhere else.

China's zero-COVID strategy is having a tremendous cost, while barely 17.4% of Africans are vaccinated. That bodes well for new variants.

Meanwhile, rich countries keep hoarding jabs, now also against monkeypox. Did we not learn anything after more than two years?

Watch the GZERO World episode: How depoliticizing the US health response will save lives (COVID isn't over)

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Listen: The world is grappling with intense political and humanitarian challenges—raging wars, surging nationalism, and a warming climate, to name a few. Yet, we also stand at the brink of some of the most transformative opportunities in human history. So how do we make sense of the future and what’s next? Ian Bremmer breaks it all down in a special edition of the GZERO World Podcast: The 2024 State of the World.

Workers of the Judiciary in Mexico City, Mexico, on October 15, 2024, protest outside the National Palace in the capital against judicial reform in Mexico. They reject the bill promoted by the former president of Mexico, Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, which proposes the election by popular vote of judges, magistrates, and ministers of the Supreme Court starting in 2025.
(Photo by Gerardo Vieyra/NurPhoto)

Eight out of Mexico’s 11 Supreme Court justices announced late Wednesday that they would resign their positions in opposition to a judicial overhaul that requires them to stand for election, while at the same time Congress passed new legislation that will prohibit legal challenges to constitutional changes.

Footage circulated online on Oct 18, 2024 shows North Korean troops training in Russia.
EYEPRESS via Reuters Connect

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken says North Korean soldiers are expected to deploy in combat against Ukrainians in the coming days, while American Deputy UN Ambassador Robert Wood said 8,000 of Pyongyang’s soldiers are in the Kursk region, which Ukraine has partially occupied.

Iranians walk next to an anti-US and Israeli billboard with pictures of Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian and Iranian Armed Forces Chief of Staff, Major General Mohammad Bagheri, and US President Joe Biden and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, on a street in Tehran, Iran, October 27, 2024.
Majid Asgaripour/Reuters

Ali Vaez, director of the International Crisis Group’s Iran Project, said rumors of an impending Iranian attack “make no sense.”

Jess Frampton

Yanking endorsements days before a close election is like giving yourself a political wedgie, an awkward, painful experience that seems inappropriate and undermines the integrity of the decision — and yet, while the timing looks weak, the merits of the argument are strong, writes GZERO Publisher Evan Solomon. He weighs in on Washington Post owner Jeff Bezos’ last-minute decision to no longer publish political endorsements — and explains why GZERO never endorses candidates.