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Coronavirus: la fièvre monte autour de l’Organisation mondiale de la santé et elle est politique

Non sans arrière-pensées électorales, Donald Trump rejoint la cohorte des détracteurs de l’OMS et de sa gestion de la crise

Alors que près de 1,5 million de personnes dans le monde ont été infectées à ce jour par le coronavirus et que plus de 83 000 en sont mortes, selon les données recueillies par la Johns Hopkins University à la date de mercredi, la fièvre monte dangereusement autour de l’Organisation mondiale de la santé (OMS), l’agence des Nations unies pour la santé publique créée en 1948.

S’ajoutant aux critiques émises par beaucoup au sujet du temps perdu au début de la crise pour tirer la sonnette d’alarme, Donald Trump est monté au créneau, mardi, en reprochant à l’OMS de s’être focalisée sur la Chine et d’avoir formulé de mauvais conseils au sujet de l’épidémie. Avant de faire machine arrière, l’hôte de la Maison Blanche, dont les arrière-pensées sont surtout politiques, a menacé de suspendre la contribution américaine à l’organisation.

Ce serait plus qu’un coup dur alors que les Etats-Unis sont les plus gros contributeurs au budget de l’agence –4,8 milliards de dollars pour 2020-2021 entre contributions et dons volontaires et environ 1 milliard de dollars lors de l’exercice 2016-2017, soit un tiers de l’enveloppe totale. Suivent la Fondation Bill et Melinda Gates, le fondateur de Microsoft, avec quelque 600 millions de dollars ; le Royaume-Uni (près de 400 millions) ; Gavi, l’alliance du vaccin (250 millions) ; le Japon (250 millions) et l’Allemagne (200 millions).

La Chine n’arrive qu’au quatorzième rang des donateurs avec 100 millions de dollars, à quasi-égalité avec la France

Susceptibilité. Dans ce tableau, la Chine n’arrive qu’au quatorzième rang des donateurs avec 100 millions de dollars, à quasi-égalité avec la France. Or, l’OMS, aujourd’hui dirigée par l’Ethiopien Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, est très clairement accusée d’être sous l’influence de Pékin qui avait réussi à placer l’une des siennes à sa tête entre 2006 et 2017, en la personne de Margaret Chan.

Tôt ou tard, l’organisation devra expliquer pourquoi elle a tant tardé à reconnaître le virus – apparu officiellement au début de l’année à Wuhan – comme étant transmissible à l’homme et à déclarer l’état de pandémie mondiale – ce qu’elle a finalement fait le 11 mars – si ce n’est, comme accusent les détracteurs de son directeur général, pour ménager la susceptibilité des autorités chinoises. Depuis, sa gestion de la crise et ses recommandations sont loin de faire l’unanimité dans le monde. « Est-il raisonnable de continuer à exclure Taïwan de l’OMS ? » s’interrogeait notamment, début mars, dans les colonnes de l’Opinion, le représentant de Taïpei à Paris, en faisant valoir que l’île (379 cas, 5 morts à ce jour) avait réussi à juguler l’épidémie.

« Il y a un clair besoin de redessiner la mission et la structure de l’Organisation. Aujourd’hui, elle est loin d’être réactive. Elle devrait mener la bataille pas la suivre » commente pour l’Opinion Peter J. Pitts, consultant de la Food and Drug Administration (FDA), l’autorité américaine en matière de médicaments.

« C’est vrai que c’est un organisme international et qu’il ne peut susciter entièrement un consensus. L’OMS doit avoir la capacité et le désir de mener les choses en période de crise. La pandémie actuelle montre qu’elle n’a ni le talent, ni la volonté pour le faire » ajoute l’ancien numéro deux de la FDA, en se démarquant toutefois des récentes critiques de l’hôte de la Maison Blanche. « Le Président Trump cherche quelqu’un à blâmer. Mes commentaires sont un appel à reconnaître et à résoudre le problème. Comme on dit en anglais “Don’t fix the blame. Fix the problem”, c’est-à-dire ne jetons pas l’opprobe, réglons le problème. »

Outre le fait qu’il n’a pas dû apprécier les critiques de Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus sur sa décision de suspendre les liaisons aériennes avec la Chine, en mars dernier, l’hôte de la Maison Blanche ne fait qu’ajouter l’OMS à la liste des coupables à présenter aux Américains à l’approche de l’élection présidentielle du 3 novembre. Pékin y figure déjà en bonne place et si Donald Trump ne parle plus du « virus chinois » comme il le faisait encore il y a peu pour parler du Covid-19, ses amis du parti républicain ne manquent pas d’incriminer Pékin au Congrès et sur les ondes pour la crise sanitaire et économique que traversent actuellement les Etats-Unis.

« L’OMS et son directeur général Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus ont fait copain-copain avec le parti communiste chinois depuis le début de l’épidémie »

« Perroquet ». Présenté comme une organisation de consommateurs proche de la droite dure américaine et des fabricants de tabac, le Consumer Choice Center n’a pas manqué d’embrayer sur les récents propos du Président américain. « Pendant des années, l’OMS a usé de son pouvoir et de ses moyens d’une manière mal avisée contre le vapotage et l’obésité tout en négligeant ce qui devrait être sa priorité : répondre aux crises sanitaires mondiales et aux épidémies (…). On a vu durant l’épidémie Ebola en Afrique de l’Ouest en 2013-2014 qu’elle a été trop lente à réagir et inefficace en matière de politique sanitaire, et on le voit en temps réel avec le Covid-19, dénonçait, mercredi, dans un communiqué Yaël Ossowski, son directeur adjoint. L’OMS et son directeur général Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus ont fait copain-copain avec le parti communiste chinois depuis le début de l’épidémie. Le 19 janvier, ils ont même répété comme un perroquet la version du PCC selon laquelle la transmission du virus de l’homme à l’homme était improbable. Maintenant, il est temps d’envoyer un clair signal pour que l’OMS devienne transparente et rende des comptes pour ses échecs. »

Même si le débat sera sans doute plus feutré, l’organisation qui emploie 8 200 personnes dans 150 pays du monde n’échappera sans doute pas à une remise en question de son organisation et de ses actions.

Originally published here.

The Consumer Choice Center is the consumer advocacy group supporting lifestyle freedom, innovation, privacy, science, and consumer choice. The main policy areas we focus on are digital, mobility, lifestyle & consumer goods, and health & science.

The CCC represents consumers in over 100 countries across the globe. We closely monitor regulatory trends in Ottawa, Washington, Brussels, Geneva and other hotspots of regulation and inform and activate consumers to fight for #ConsumerChoice. Learn more at consumerchoicecenter.org

Pypnka rubryka

Як боротьба з коронавірусом може вбити демократію: що відбувається в Європі

Нам знадобилося 75 років, щоб відновити свободу в деяких частинах Європи після тоталітарних жахів Другої світової війни та менше трьох тижнів, щоб знову поставити її на коліна. З коронавірусом на задньому плані, по Європі проносяться тривожні ерозії свободи слова та засобів масової інформації.

Так, минулого тижня парламент Угорщини прийняв закон, який дозволяє лідеру націоналістичного руху країни Віктору Орбану керувати країною безстроково. Закон дає змогу уряду Орбана ув’язнити будь-кого, хто оприлюднив помилкові факти, що заважають “успішному захисту” охорони здоров’я, або можуть створити “плутанину або заворушення”, пов’язані з коронавірусом. Така велика свобода розсуду з боку влади — це смертний вирок свободі слова, що є наріжним каменем демократії.

Віктор Орбан

Свобода слова відіграє найважливішу роль у встановленні відповідальності між урядом та його електоратом, а також забезпечує існування недискримінаційного взаємного потоку спілкування. Коли уряди монополізують цю свободу, демократія — в небезпеці. Віктор Орбан обрав правильну ціль. Навіть незважаючи на те, що Орбан запевняє, що ці закони будуть зняті, коли пандемія закінчиться, політичне минуле Орбана свідчить про протилежне. З часу своєї перемоги у 2010 році Орбан посилив державний контроль над засобами масової інформації, щоб придушити будь-яку опозицію та поетапно підірвати систему стримувань та противаг. “Демократія не обов’язково є ліберальною; Навіть коли державна політика не є ліберальною, вона все ще може бути демократією”, — вважає Орбан.

З такою проблемою зіткнулась не лише Угорщина. У Сербії постанова уряду про централізацію інформації під час надзвичайної ситуації з коронавірусом стала причиною арештів. Першого квітня після повідомлення про дефіцит захисного медичного обладнання, доступного для персоналу медичного центру в Сербії, сербська журналістка Ана Лалич була затримана. Лалич звинуватили у громадських заворушеннях за поширенні неправдивих новин під час надзвичайної ситуації.

Анна Лалич

У Польщі Міністерство охорони здоров’я заборонило медичним консультантам ділитись незалежними висновками щодо епідеміологічної ситуації, стану лікарень та методів захисту від інфекції. За поширення аналогічної інформації лікарів можуть звільнити.

Словенія та Чехія повністю заборонили присутність журналістів на офіційних прес-конференціях. Словенська журналістка, яка подала запит про вжиті урядом заходи щодо боротьби з пандемією, стала об’єктом розмитої кампанії ЗМІ, близької до політичної партії, яка очолює урядову коаліцію, за словами комісара з прав людини Ради Європи Дуни Міятович.

Вільні вибори є ключовою рисою демократичних режимів, але самі по собі є недостатніми. Справжня демократія не може існувати без громадянських прав і, зокрема, права на опір через протести, свободу слова та вільні ЗМІ. 

І на даний момент тяжко уявити кращий привід для швидкого поширення неліберальних ідей, ніж надзвичайна ситуація в галузі охорони здоров’я.

Віктор Орбан / Фото Reuters

Неліберальні уряди вкладають стільки грошей в пропаганду не просто так. Корінь їхньої сили полягає у штучно створених і страхітливих потужних розповідях, які неодноразово і послідовно поширюються, піддаючи цензурі кожен голос незгоди. Свобода вираження поглядів є для демократії тим самим, чим право приватної власності є для економіки. Монополізація одного з них веде до смерті демократії.

Тому вся Європа опинилася в глухому куті. З одного боку, ця пандемія може відвернути нас від неліберальних ідей навіки.

З іншого боку, цей кошмар може перетворитися на постійну реальність Європи, надавши урядам карт-бланш для прийняття суворих законів. Важко придумати більш ефективний спосіб придушити будь-яку потенційну непокору, ніж через використання страху за своє здоров’я. Завдяки високій трансмісивності коронавірусу, цей страх включає також батьків, друзів і буквально всіх дорогих нам людей. Це надає неліберальним урядам можливість маскувати свої тоталітарні ідеї як частину екстрених заходів для припинення пандемії. 

Демократія вкорінюється у свободі слова та медіа, і ми маємо її захищати за будь-яку ціну.

Originally published here.

The Consumer Choice Center is the consumer advocacy group supporting lifestyle freedom, innovation, privacy, science, and consumer choice. The main policy areas we focus on are digital, mobility, lifestyle & consumer goods, and health & science.

The CCC represents consumers in over 100 countries across the globe. We closely monitor regulatory trends in Ottawa, Washington, Brussels, Geneva and other hotspots of regulation and inform and activate consumers to fight for #ConsumerChoice. Learn more at consumerchoicecenter.org

Comment Central

What the NHS can learn from Germany’s Hospital System

Post-Coronavirus, the UK should not shy away from debate over the NHS, and how to achieve better patient outcomes, argues Fred Roeder

When contrasting how countries around the world are coping with COVID-19, over the past few weeks one country has stood out. Germany’s health system has received regular praise for its resilience in facing the COVID-19 pandemic, but what are they doing right?

Germany is one of the most affected countries in Europe but the mortality rates are significantly lower than in most other European countries dealing with the coronavirus. Germany’s capacity to test widely and early has definitely contributed to this but an often underappreciated factor is its very competitive, modern, and often private hospital system.

While the UK currently has fewer confirmed COVID-19 cases, this is probably due to the lack of testing capacities of the NHS, the more interesting and shocking number is that the death rate per 1 million people is four times higher in the United Kingdom compared to Germany. Germany’s mainly private and decentralized testing infrastructure happens mostly outside of hospitals, in private laboratories, and has enabled Germany to conduct as many as 150,000 tests per week. To put that in comparison, the UK has managed less than 10,000 a day so far.

Being the relative of an NHS patient, I had to assist her to go through its byzantine and centralized testing regime, even for simple blood samples. GPs send patients to hospitals just to get their blood taken and analysed. Scaling up such a centralized testing system allows no mistakes to be made. A decentralized and independent system however allows for some parts in the chain to fail and the other still to perform, and crucially allows room for innovation.

Merely 28% of the roughly 1,950 hospitals that participate in Germany’s universal health system are owned by the government. 37% are private for profit hospitals that treat patients covered by the public health insurances and receive the same amount of reimbursement per case as the public ones or the 34% that are operated by churches and other charities. Despite charging the same as government hospitals private for-profit hospitals have the highest investment per case (about 64% higher than public hospitals), which leads to more state-of-the-art treatment and newer medical equipment.

It is also very interesting to look at how private hospitals perform better compared to government hospitals in Germany. Within the first four years one can observe an increase in efficiency of between 3.2% and 5.4% above those hospitals that had not been privatised. Despite its mainly private character Germany has nearly three times as many beds per 100,000 people compared to the UK. It gets even worse when looking at intensive care beds per 100,000. Germany has over 4 times the intensive care capacity compared to the NHS. In recent weeks Germany added another 40% additional capacity to its already high intensive care beds. This number is not reflected in the comparison.

Given that we are currently facing a massive pandemic it is shocking to see how poorly prepared the centralized NHS was, from a lack of protective equipment for clinicians, to its failure to prepare for mass testing. While the hard work of individuals within the health service has done what seemed impossible only weeks ago, and has prepared the NHS to cope with coronavirus, structural issues remain.

A pluralistic hospital system that endorses competition and patient choice such as the German one seems to be in a much better position to cope with potentially tens of thousands of severe COVID-19 cases.

Yes, also in this comparatively better German hospital system patients die and doctors contract COVID-19. Healthcare workers in Germany are also overwhelmed with the amount of cases and patients. But overall it looks like Germany can endure and face this wave in a much more prepared and resilient fashion compared to the NHS which is still facing huge problems mastering this mammoth task.

After we are all through with this we should not shy away from a debate if it’s not time to open up bigger parts of the NHS hospital systems, allow competition and make the health of British patients a priority.

Originally published here.

The Consumer Choice Center is the consumer advocacy group supporting lifestyle freedom, innovation, privacy, science, and consumer choice. The main policy areas we focus on are digital, mobility, lifestyle & consumer goods, and health & science.

The CCC represents consumers in over 100 countries across the globe. We closely monitor regulatory trends in Ottawa, Washington, Brussels, Geneva and other hotspots of regulation and inform and activate consumers to fight for #ConsumerChoice. Learn more at consumerchoicecenter.org

COVID-19 Testing vs Lockdown

Testing – not lockdowns – may explain why some countries handle Covid-19 better

This is a post by a Guest Author. 
Disclaimer: The author’s views are entirely his or her own, and don’t necessarily reflect the opinions of the Consumer Choice Center.

There are ongoing debates about who has been better handling the Covid-19 pandemic: testing or lockdown?

With so many people confined to their homes, passions are running high, and there are ongoing debates about who has been better handling the Covid-19 pandemic. So much so that it feels like comparing and contrasting countries and their trajectories has become sort of a global pastime.

Nearly all developed countries (and others) have put their populations under severe lockdowns and emphasized social distancing as the silver bullet against the spread of the virus. Sweden, however, has recently been castigated for failing to put its population under a lockdown like every other country, especially other Nordic countries which it is compared and contrasted against. 

The problem is that it is quite hard to compare the performance of two randomly selected countries. For instance, on every level Norway seems to be doing much better than Sweden. That said, one can always find a bunch of other countries that are doing much worse despite having been under lockdown for some time.

It should be noted that Sweden has made some questionable decisions, regardless of social distancing. It failed to ramp up testing with increasing cases around March 20, and it only closed its nursing homes for visits in early April.

But aren’t lockdowns clearly working? 

Many people have still argued that lockdowns are clearly working because the epidemic has slowed shortly after their imposition. However, it is important that we are careful when inferring that lockdowns were responsible for the decline. There may be a correlation between the two, but as everyone should know, correlation does not necessarily mean causation, and there may be other intervening variables. It is vital that we not jump to conclusions too fast. While many people believe, and many epidemiological models assume, that unchecked epidemics just grow exponentially until more than half of the population gets infected, the evidence for Covid-19 increasingly suggests otherwise. 

Several research papers (e.g. here and here) argued that the dynamics of the Covid-19 pandemic are well-described by exponential functions only at the early stage, after which so-called power-law functions are a much better fit. A detailed study of the outbreak in the initially hit communes in Lombardy also suggests that in each commune, it started slowly, then briefly became exponential and then slowed, all that before any significant intervention.

To help you better understand what the mathematical jargon above means and why it is so important, consider two simple functions, y=2x and y=x2. The first function is exponential and the second function is a power-law one. You will better see the crucial difference between them if they are plotted together.

If these functions were describing an epidemic, then the x-axis would mean rounds of transmission. In the beginning there is one infected person in both cases. Then, until the fifth round the functions seem to grow in at an almost similar speed but afterwards, they diverge dramatically.

When researchers talk about an epidemic growing first exponentially and then in accordance with a power law, they mean that the growth of the epidemic looks like the hybrid function (first, y=2x and y=x2 after round 5) below. Its growth clearly slows a lot after the fifth round.

Why could an epidemic grow exponentially, first, and then slow down on its own? Here, it is important to remember that real societies are complex. Instead of interacting with random people every now and then, people tend to form groups (or clusters, in scientific terminology) and live in local areas within which interactions are much more intense than outside of them. With obvious implications for infection transmission.

What probably changes at the early stage of the epidemic is that so-called superspreader events are much likelier. Such events, where single infected people spread the virus to scores, hundreds or even thousands of people, have clearly played an enormous role in Covid-19. It is enough to mention the Shincheonji Church of Jesus in South Korea, the tragic gathering of French catholics in Mulhouse and the first coronavirus-hit hospitals in Lombardy. At these events, infected people have an opportunity to spread the virus way beyond their clusters of interactions.

After the initial stage, when everyone becomes aware that the epidemic is in the community and significant events are cancelled, the infection may get increasingly isolated within clusters, first, grow slower and then start falling off. The available data is increasingly hinting at this process in play. In Italy, cases appear to have peaked on the day the national lockdown was announced. In the US, they appear to have peaked on March 20.  

Lockdowns could even be counterproductive

A more speculative but still plausible idea is that lockdowns could, in fact, not merely coincide with the slowing-down of Covid-19 without causing it but actually create more damage than they prevent.

Many people believe that if some social distancing (like closing bars or canceling events) is desirable than extreme social distancing like lockdowns that keeps most people at home most of the time must be even more beneficial. However, this potentially ignores two important facts about Covid-19 and viral diseases in general.

First, it is abundantly clear that Covid-19 overwhelmingly spreads in closed, often poorly ventilated spaces and through close contacts. Secondly, as Robin Hanson convincingly argued, there is a wealth of evidence that the severity of viral disease depends on the viral dose received. This means that if families are forced to stay at home together all the time, this may create perfect conditions for the virus to spread and especially cause severe disease.

The data from Google about actual social distancing patterns in several countries hit by Covid-19 shows that Italy, Spain and France have had by far the most extreme social distancing, and the UK was starting to catch up with them after its lockdown. Yet, these four countries have some of the highest fatality rates in the world per population and detected cases.    

Could testing explain things better?

A better way to try to make sense of the causation is to try to identify a bunch of countries that have something important in common. The most important thing in any epidemic is to minimize deaths, and there is a group of countries that seem to have far fewer deaths by population size, and per identified infections, than others. These countries include Iceland, Germany, South Korea, Taiwan, Austria, and Norway. You can see how low their case fatality rates are compared to other countries with a lot of cases here (see the “death rates” column).

What makes those countries succeed in driving down deaths? One would actually be surprised to learn that none of these countries is, or was, under total lockdown. South Korea hasn’t even closed bars and restaurants. This shows that extreme social distancing measures are not necessarily the best explanation.

The real answer may largely lie in how many tests those countries have been doing compared to others. Testing may reduce fatality rates by giving public health responders valuable information and helping to isolate and quarantine those that carry the virus before they spread it to vulnerable groups like the elderly.

Iceland is the absolute champion at testing. It has already conducted 28,992 tests, which is more than 8% of its entire population. It also has the world’s lowest case fatality rate from Covid-19 at 0.38%. Iceland isn’t an anomaly, and using Iceland as an example isn’t cherry picking. Researchers Sinha, Sengupta and Ghosal showed that country death rates from Covid-19 are significantly correlated with the intensity of testing. They did not, however, control for the potential impact of lockdowns and other stringent social distancing measures.

Testing and outcomes by region

In addition to national data, one can also look at regional data where it is available and see if the testing/fatality relationship still holds. Italy has been publishing detailed regional statistics on Covid-19 starting from February 24. If we plot tests per confirmed cases in each region with reported fatalities per million inhabitants, we get the following picture:

The chart surprisingly shows us that Italy’s worst hit region isn’t Lombardy, and that it is actually the little-known Aosta Valley. We also see that there is a clear negative relationship between the intensity of testing and fatality rates. In fact, the former seems to explain more than half of the variation in the latter, and the regression coefficient is statistically significant (the p-value is 0.0003).

To conclude, it will take a long time and careful research to sort out why some countries and regions have gone through the Covid-19 pandemic much less damaged than others. That said, one thing seems to be increasingly clear. When the dust settles it will be clear that testing will be a significant factor, and that the importance of social distancing will be diminished. 

Guest Author: Daniil Gorbatenko

The Consumer Choice Center is the consumer advocacy group supporting lifestyle freedom, innovation, privacy, science, and consumer choice. The main policy areas we focus on are digital, mobility, lifestyle & consumer goods, and health & science.

The CCC represents consumers in over 100 countries across the globe. We closely monitor regulatory trends in Ottawa, Washington, Brussels, Geneva and other hotspots of regulation and inform and activate consumers to fight for #ConsumerChoice. Learn more at consumerchoicecenter.org

Blog Post

Force Majeure during the COVID-19 Pandemic

By Linda Kavuka, Trade Policy Fellow, Consumer Choice Center

Blog Post

Confirmed cases of the novel coronavirus (COVID-19), which first appeared in China at the end of last year, are currently over 800,000 as of April 1st 2020. What was initially seen as a largely China-centric shock has now become a global pandemic. 

Global consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic have included grounding of flights and limited international travel, closure of public markets, issuance of curfews and also lock-down of countries and cities where there has been rapid spread of the virus. Governments have advised employers to allow their staff to work from home, called for closures of schools and banned all social gatherings, including religious meetings. People have been urged to observe very high levels of hygiene and to thoroughly wash hands with soap and water and use sanitizers in the alternative. 

The International business community has not been spared of the said shocks. With the end of the pandemic unclear, the economic impact is expected to be very severe globally. Considering the disruptions to international supply chains that have occurred as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, it is expected that many players in the International Trade community will be caught up with non-performance of their contractual obligations, and lawsuits shall follow. Does the COVID-19 pandemic qualify for the operation of the Force Majeure clause as a relief to affected parties?

Ordinarily, when entities and individuals trade with each other, they sign contracts that legally bind them to their agreements. The contracts list obligations of the parties and also circumstances that would call for the termination or suspension of the said obligations. One of the circumstances that could excuse non-performance or termination of a contract is legally known as “Force Majeure”, one of the standard clauses of a contract. 

Article 7.1.7 (1) of the UNIDROIT Principles defines Force Majeure as follows:

“Non-performance by a party is excused if that party proves that the non-performance was due to an impediment beyond its control and that it could not reasonably be expected to have taken the impediment into account at the time of the conclusion of the contract or to have avoided or overcome it or its consequences.”

If the said Impediment is temporary the defaulting party shall be excused for a reasonable period of time. The Force Majeure Clause only takes effect where the defaulting party gives notice to the other party explaining the impediment and the impact it has had on the expected performance, otherwise the defaulting party shall be liable for damages. In order for a party to rely on the Force Majeure defense, the clause must be included in their contract contract and the impediment causing non-performance of their obligation must be expressly stated.

An example of a Force Majeure clause in a Sale Contract reads as follows:

“Either party shall be relieved of all responsibility for any failure or delay for the carrying out of their obligations hereunder due to product discontinuation, manufacturer price changes, supplier price changes, changing market conditions, strikes, riots, civil unrest or an act of civil or military authority, combinations or restrictions of work, Act of God, war, insurrection, fire not caused by its act or omission or that of its servants or invitees on the property, tempest, industrial disputes, an act of a public enemy, a boycott, embargoes, failure of communications systems unavoidable accident or any other circumstances beyond its reasonable control whether or not the same be ejusedem generis with those above.”

Since Pandemics with such severe impacts are uncommon they are usually not expressly provided for in contracts. Events from the past month to date are a clear indication of a situation that is beyond control, and may lead to involuntary breach of contract by parties who fail to meet their contractual obligations. Parties that do not have Force Majeure clauses and are unable to meet their obligations can plead Frustration of Contract which defense does not require prior inclusion in their contracts.

Medical professionals around the world are working tirelessly to find a cure for the COVID-19 virus and are currently testing some combinations of medication. A fact is that we cannot forecast when things will be back to normal and the International trading markets restored. While policy focus by most affected governments has been to provide safety nets for their economies with measures such as food donations and grants to needy families, tax reductions and pay cuts for some officials, unfortunately businesses have been left to think fast and make tough decisions to remain afloat.

Time is of the essence for those who wish to rely on the Force Majeure and Frustration of contract defenses for their non-performance and a reminder that ignorance of the law is not a defense as a rule of thumb. Players of the International trade market and policy makers will all have to act in good faith for the sake of survival as we all anticipate the end of the pandemic, after-which a whole new world order shall begin.

The Consumer Choice Center is the consumer advocacy group supporting lifestyle freedom, innovation, privacy, science, and consumer choice. The main policy areas we focus on are digital, mobility, lifestyle & consumer goods, and health & science.

The CCC represents consumers in over 100 countries across the globe. We closely monitor regulatory trends in Ottawa, Washington, Brussels, Geneva and other hotspots of regulation and inform and activate consumers to fight for #ConsumerChoice. Learn more at consumerchoicecenter.org

The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly Laws Passed in Wake of the Coronavirus Pandemic

It’s now springtime in the northern hemisphere, and we’re now several weeks into the COVID-19 pandemic.

As consumer advocates, our job has never relinquished: we’re there to closely monitor regulatory trends in major capitals to inform and activate consumers to fight for #ConsumerChoice.

With governments scrambling to protect its citizens, we’ve seen an unprecedented push to both pass and repeal laws in order to better fight against the virus. Some have been greatly beneficial to consumer choice, while others leave us scratching our heads.

Here’s a list of some of the Good, the Bad, and the Ugly laws we’ve seen around the world.

Providing Healthcare

The Good

Massachusetts and other American states are removing regulations that prohibit medical professionals from practicing in other states

The United Kingdom has removed regulations that limited the quick production and shipping of medical supplies for its health professionals.

The U.S. relaxed rules on what can constitute a hospital, as makeshift healthcare facilities have sprung up around the country. It also has allowed more telemedicine, which was previously severely limited.

New York State has opened up its recommendation process for prescription drugs, allowing patients to have more choice.

The Bad

Early on, the Centers For Disease Control and Food and Drug Administration monopolized and centralized all testing, slowing down the initial response to the growing number of cases in multiple jurisdictions.

The Ugly

The Chinese Communist Party and its affiliated companies sold tests later determined to be faulty to countries including Spain and the Czech Republic. In the Czech Republic, for example, 80% of the tests were found to not work in the slightest.

Alcohol Delivery

The Good

Many U.S. states and Canadian provinces legalized alcohol delivery and takeout options for restaurants and bars, helping to keep these stores in business while they’re forced to shut down their physical presence. This includes jurisdictions that previously did not allow for alcohol delivery.

The Bad

The Commonwealth of Pennslyvania closed all liquor stores in response to the coronavirus. Because the state maintains a monopoly on liquor, that means no Pennlsyvania residents are able to acquire liquor at this time. This has pushed thousands to visit neighboring states to purchase their booze.

In New Jersey, several liquor stores have been totally emptied by Pennsylvania residents alone!

The Ugly

South Africa has banned all alcohol sales until at least April 16th. Greenland followed the same blanket ban until the same date.

Surveillance and Technology

The Good

The FCC’s Keep America Connected Pledge has garnered the support of more than 60 companies committed to raising broadband speeds, removing all data caps, and providing better service during the pandemic. That means there will be no forced reduction of quality as is being mandated in the European Union via its net neutrality rules.

Germany will soon issue coronavirus “immunity certificates” to indicate who has recovered from the virus and is ready to re-enter society.

The Bad

Israel passed an emergency measure to allow the government to track mobile phone data in order to track the spread of the coronavirus.

Dozens of other countries are using mobile phone data secured from ad agencies to track the movements of citizens and to enforce social distancing. Over 500 U.S. cities are now tracking its residents.

The Ugly

South Africa will allow 10,000 field workers to “check up on people in the homes” if they have coronavirus.

Countries such as Bangladesh, Ethiopia, India, and Myanmar have resorted to shutting down the Internet in the wake of the pandemic.

When the crisis first began in China, its forces shut down and jailed journalists and doctors who warned about the spread of the disease. It has been labeled a cover-up.

Rule of Law

The Good

In the Netherlands, Prime Minister Mark Rutte has reluctantly passed some restrictions, but wants to keep citizens free to come and go to ensure their freedoms during this time.

“And even if that were possible in practice – making people stay in their homes unless they have permission to go outside, for such a lengthy period – the virus could simply rear its head again once the measures were lifted. The Netherlands is an open country.”

The Bad

The Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was set to be tried on corruption charges, but due to the coronavirus, he shut down all courts and thus will still avoid a verdict.

The Ugly

In Hungary, Prime Minister Viktor Orban won a vote that will allow him to rule by decree, without opposition nor elections, with no end date. This effectively erases the rule of law.

Do you have other examples? Write to us at info@consumerchoicecenter.org.

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