Coronavirus Update: WHO under fire over coronavirus response, but is criticism deserved?

Good evening – here are the coronavirus updates you need to know tonight.

Top headlines:

1. Flattery and foot dragging: China’s influence over the WHO under scrutiny
2. Questions surface about history of WHO’s director Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus
3. Why it’s more important than ever to support community gardens

Coronavirus explainers: Updates and essential resources • Coronavirus in maps and charts • The rules in each province

Photo of the day

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Number of the day

30 per cent

Four out of every five barrels of oil produced in Canada are exported, most to the United States. But with global oil demand down by 30 per cent, owing to an estimated 60-per-cent decrease in driving and a drop in air travel to just 5 per cent of pre-pandemic levels, the U.S. market is swimming in crude nobody needs.

• Few traders, even seasoned commodity veterans, expected the extent of the carnage in oil this past week. But many retail investors are particularly vulnerable. Investors are suffering as oil prices plummet in a chaotic trading week.

What it means: If storage in Canada and the U.S. hits capacity, oil production would have to stop.

Coronavirus in Canada

• Ontario has issued an emergency order that opens allotment and community gardens, declaring them essential.
• British Columbia is looking to temporarily relocate people from tent encampments in Vancouver and Victoria to other accommodations. The Public Safety Minister said 686 hotel and community centre accommodations in Vancouver and 324 hotel spaces in Victoria have been secured by the government to relocate more than 1,000 people.

In Ottawa, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said it’s too early to talk of so-called “immunity passports” for Canadians. “It is very clear that the science is not decided on whether or not having had COVID once prevents you from having it again,” he told reporters.

Without federal relief for transit – something all Canadian cities joined together to ask for this week – Calgary is expected to follow in the footsteps of Vancouver and Toronto, which announced massive transit layoffs.

Coronavirus around the world

• While some Republican-led U.S. states are lifting coronavirus containment measures, right-wing groups, some with ties to the President, are pushing for a cross-country campaign of protests calling for more states to reopen. Other states are moving far more gradually. For example, California is only allowing hospitals to resume elective surgery this week.
• Harry and Meghan, the former Duke and Duchess of Sussex, have been pilloried for appearing to be self-absorbed during the pandemic for relocating to Los Angeles and a new “media relations policy.”
• Coronavirus cases are overwhelming hospitals, morgues and cemeteries across Brazil as the nation is close to becoming one of the world’s pandemic hot spots.
• China sought to block a European Union report alleging that Beijing was spreading disinformation about the coronavirus outbreak, according to four sources and diplomatic correspondence reviewed by Reuters.

Question and answer

Question: I’m not driving much these days. How can I lower my insurance payments?

Answer: “I’ve seen a lot of companies offering 90-day deferrals, and some are making it more indefinite until this ends,” says Matt Hands, business unit director at Ratehub, a financial-comparison site. “Whatever you’re deferring, you’ve got to make sure you can pay it down the road.”

Instead of postponing your payments, call your insurance company and ask for other ways to pay less during the shutdown.

Here are a few ways to potentially save a few bucks on your monthly payments.

The Globe’s health columnist André Picard answered reader questions on social distancing and many additional topics.

An act of kindness

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Vancouver restaurateur makes a plan to help vulnerable residents and other restaurants

The Food Coalition, spearheaded by Chambar restaurant owner Karri Schuermans, will launch next week, beginning with the distribution of 700 meals a day to social agencies and people living in privately owned single-room occupancy hotels whose food needs are not being met because of the pandemic.

Supported by the city’s Emergency Operations Centre, the meal-delivery system will be co-ordinated through Foodee, an online platform that usually delivers catered lunches to business offices from local restaurants. The meals will be distributed though a fleet of service vehicles provided by Telus.

Have you witnessed or performed acts of kindness in your neighbourhood? Share your stories, photos and videos and they might be included in The Globe and Mail. Email audience@globeandmail.com

Distractions

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For those who are experimenting with style and design

• You might not need a full blown renovation, you might just need a room edit to give your space an uplift.
• Designer Brian Gluckstein distracts clients with dreams of the spaces they’ll create on the other side of the pandemic.
• Ask a design expert: How can I maximize all this at-home time with some decluttering?

More Globe reporting and opinion

• When Dr. Bonnie Henry thinks back to the first, nerve-wracking weeks of B.C.’s response to the COVID-19 emergency, the Provincial Health Officer recalls a three-day span in which she couldn’t sleep.
• The Canadian government says the China-based supplier that sold it approximately one million faulty masks has pledged to send replacements.
• Philip Slayton: “Faced with a huge and immediately dangerous worldwide medical crisis, it seems necessary to respond forcefully, to do what has to be done, to have what Mr. Trudeau, using the language of wartime, calls a ‘civic mobilization.’”
• Jeff Rubin: “A vaccine will (hopefully) be developed or an effective anti-viral drug will be discovered. But the fear that the pandemic has unleashed will long outlive the contagion.”

Information centre:

• Here’s what you should do if you are newly laid off; how to apply for CERB, EI, and other financial benefits; and other coronavirus and employment questions answered.
• How to minimize damage to your credit score; how to manage retirement anxiety during difficult times; and things to think about if you’re considering home delivery.
• Here are the expectations for self-isolation; tips for managing anxiety; and protecting your mental health.
• How to get social distancing right; measures condo buildings are taking to encourage social distancing; and what you can do to help slow the spread of coronavirus.
• Here are the essentials to stock up on and how to shop safely for groceries; the best pantry staples; foods to eat to maintain an immune system-friendly diet; and how to keep a healthy diet while working from home.
• How to break a bad habit (like touching your face) and what to do if you think you have the virus.

What are we missing? Email us: audience@globeandmail.com. Do you know someone who needs this newsletter? Send them to our Newsletters page.

Have questions about the coronavirus? Email audience@globeandmail.com. The Globe’s paywall has been removed on coronavirus news stories.