sciencemag.org SCIENCETrump eyes pulling out of WHO
POLITICS | Public health researchers
criticized President Donald Trump’s threat
this week to end U.S. membership in the
World Health Organization (WHO) and
permanently withdraw funding. Trump
has said China did not act quickly enough
to stop the COVID-19 pandemic; in an
18 May letter to WHO, he complained
that it, too, moved too slowly and failed to
confront China. Scientists said his state-
ments were unjustified and contained
factual inaccuracies about WHO’s role and
how the pandemic unfolded. “China and
the U.S. are fighting it out like divorced
parents while WHO is the child caught in
the middle trying not to pick sides,” said
Devi Sridhar, a professor of global public
health at the University of Edinburgh.CDC reopening guidance faulted
POLICY | The U.S. Centers for Disease
Control and Prevention (CDC) drew
controversy last week by releasing a
set of recommendations, which critics
complained were watered down, to guide
the country’s reopening from COVID-
lockdowns. The guidelines replaced an
earlier draft that White House officials PHOTO: SIPA USA VIA APNEWS
Warp Speed leaders are named
VACCINES | The White House on 15 May
named a veteran of vaccine development
and a U.S. Army general to lead a crash,
$10 billion program to develop vaccines,
drugs, and diagnostics for COVID-19. It
aims to deliver one or more vaccines to
300 million Americans by January 2021,
a nationalistic goal potentially at odds
with a call last week by more than
140 world leaders to equitably distribute
any vaccine globally. Moncef Slaoui, who
formerly led global vaccine development
at GlaxoSmithKline, will guide the sci-
ence for the U.S. effort, called Operation
Warp Speed, while Gen. Gustave
Perna will oversee the supply chain
and delivery of products. The private-
public partnership plans to vaccinate
Americans first before sharing products
with other countries. The U.K. govern-
ment took a similar stand last week
about a vaccine being developed with
its funding by the University of Oxford.
And French vaccine manufacturer
Sanofi, under pressure from French
leaders, retreated from a claim by its
CEO last week that it would supply the
United States first because of early fund-
ing from the U.S. government.
IN BRIEF
Edited by Jeffrey Brainard
DISPATCHES FROM THE PANDEMICPatrons enjoy drinks inside a bar in Bloomington, Indiana, on 16 May after authorities there and in many other U.S. jurisdictions lifted stay-at-home orders.
804 22 MAY 2020 • VOL 368 ISSUE 6493
had rejected as too prescriptive and
burdensome on businesses. The replace-
ment consists of six flow charts describing
safeguards such as cleaning measures
and employee monitoring that schools,
offices, and other facilities should begin
before reopening. Public health experts,
including Anthony Fauci, head of the
U.S. National Institute of Allergy and
Infectious Diseases and a member of the
White House Coronavirus Task Force,
continued to warn of disastrous conse-
quences of easing lockdowns prematurely.
By this week, all but a handful of states
had reopened retail stores, and many
began to allow dine-in service to resume
at restaurants, though nearly all schools
remain closed for the academic year.China’s halt cut pollution deaths
PUBLIC HEALTH | Even as COVID-19 took
thousands of lives in China, a reduction in
air pollution from the country’s lockdown
saved more lives than those lost to the novel
coronavirus, a study has estimated. The
quarantine reduced traffic, leading to a 37%
decline in emissions of nitrogen dioxide
and a 30% fall in fine particulate matter
at the height of China’s quarantine, from
10 February to 14 March. This preventedPublished by AAAS