Australia has been taking several steps to contain the covid 19 pandemic.

Australia since the first

case of covid 19 in January 25th(Gov. Website )had imposed preventive measures the same day.
DFAT, the department of foreign affairs and trade raised the level of travel advise to 4 ‘do not travel’
and measures were taken at the borders to detect travellers who were unwell (Media release from
P.M Greg Hunt). Furthermore, Australia banned travel for non-citizens from China to Australia on
February 1st (Reuters article) which was a few days after the first covid case in the country.

This delegate feels that covid-19 is an imminent threat that needs to be dealt with and hopes that
there will be fruitful and interesting debate throughout the conference to find solution to this
pandemic.

Moderated Caucus topics:

Methods which can be used to prevent the spread of the virus.

This delegate believes that new methods and policies must be mandated or encouraged by the
various governments to slow down the spread of the virus. There are various steps that need to be
taken such as mandatory mask wearing in public areas and even bans on international flights.
Although such measures may seem extreme, they may prove to be vital to prevent the spread of this
virus at such an early stage. Furthermore, this delegate believes that the shutting down of the stock
markets in various countries should be in consideration due to the global economic slump caused by
covid 19. In addition, more test units are required to diagnose people and help various organizations
to get a better picture of the virus and its severity. This delegate urges the other delegates to put
forth ideas to contain this virus

Canada:

Not yet kept any travel bans despite there being multiple covid cases

Italy:

Currently, Italy has the worst covid outbreak of all the other countries excluding China, the source of
the virus.

The main reason is the poor invesment in healthcare (6.8% of GDP). The other reason is that the
government, alhoug beginning bans and restrictions, failed to identify the people with the virus until
it was too late.

USA:

The government of the United states of America has failed. There are over a 1000 cases in the US
with 38 deaths across different states. On the 10th of february, the president stated that the virus
woulf 'miraculously go away' in April despite there being no scientific evidence that it would. The
President of the united states has also said that a vaccine would be developed very soon a few days
ago. However, scientists say that a vaccine wont be developed until next year realistically. On the
29th of February, the US introduced some sweeping restrictions and some quarantine measures, but
other countries had taken much more serious steps. For example, China and Italy introduced
widespread quarantining and the EU closed its external borders for atleast 30 days

Ensuring the safety and efficiency of COVID-19 vaccines

Mindful of prior vaccine safety challenges, regulators should appropriately cautious about approving
vaccines for widespread use. Even during a pandemic, when much of the population is at risk,
vaccines, unlike therapeutics, are administered to very large numbers of healthy individuals, and so
must be extremely safe.

Phase 3 pivotal vaccine safety and effectiveness trials typically enroll at minimum several thousand
vaccinated individuals and control study participants and should detect a major safety signal of an
order of magnitude likely to outweigh the benefits of an effective vaccine. Government departments
like FDA in the USA and EMA in Europe should explain how the agencies will carefully analyze these
trials for safety signals before permitting broader use of a COVID-19 vaccine.

As soon as feasible vaccine safety is established in trials, studies should also involve pregnant
women, including those who risk exposure as health care workers, and young children, who are at
risk of developing an infection-related multisystem inflammatory syndrome. In addition, based on
animal studies, some vaccines against other coronaviruses have shown the potential to worsen
disease among vaccinated individuals who develop breakthrough infections

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-51818627

https://edition.cnn.com/world/live-news/coronavirus-outbreak-03-11-20-intl-hnk/index.html

https://covid19.who.int/?gclid=CjwKCAjwmf_4BRABEiwAGhDfSYo4xDXC90MDChh8NHpdx-
0PDGCAI7BkY2sPnUh3qzJt8WMSyNknqhoCTuYQAvD_BwE

https://in.reuters.com/article/us-china-health-australia/australia-should-ease-travel-ban-on-
foreigners-from-china-ambassador-idINKBN20B06K

https://edition.cnn.com/interactive/2020/03/politics/coronavirus-trump-cdc-timeline/