Shiv Vikram Khemka

 Vice-Chairman, SUN Group Global, Executive Chairman, The Global Education & Leadership Foundation | India

Shiv Vikram Khemka is Vice-Chairman of SUN Group, with both operating and investment companies active in areas including Private Equity, Renewable Energy, Oil & Gas, High Technology, Gold Mining and Real Estate. Khemka has served on the Board of Overseers of The Wharton School for over a decade, and currently on the board of the Lauder Institute and the Centre for Advanced Studies of India at the University of Pennsylvania. Khemka also serves on the Yale University’s President’s Council on International Activities, the Asia Society Policy Institute’s Global Council. He has also been a member of the President’s Leadership Council at Brown University, the Advisory Board of the School of Oriental and African Studies, and the board of the Judge Institute at Cambridge University. Mr. Khemka was elected a “Global Leader for Tomorrow” (GLT) at the World Economic Forum in Davos in 1997. He was awarded the “Wharton India Alumni Award”, the “Dr. Jean Mayer Global Citizenship Award” by Tufts University, and the “Outstanding Contribution to Education Prize” by Wharton. Shiv Vikram Khemka talked about the impact of COVID-19 on the global workforce. He underlined that changing norms of the future job market by stressing that there is an urgent need for the young population to think in an entrepreneurship mindset, encourage cooperation and work together not to waste resources globally. Khemka also draw attention to the fact that sports have an important role in the democratization of entrepreneurship for everyone to meaningfully participate in the social life, economy, and the job market.

The workforce, who has been working physically, is deeply affected by the new era of online engagement. On one hand, jobs have been lost and on the other hand, online engagement has created work opportunities for many people. It is estimated that most people, who are working remotely, make over 50 percent of the working population. Recent surveys showed that 70 percent of online workers are actually not complaining and believe their efficiency may be going up. There is 30 percent who are unhappy in terms of the working methodology. On the other side of the situation, many jobs have been lost and many more jobs could be lost depending on the duration of this recession. The toll on mental health on interpersonal relationships is increasing. There is an excessive burden on women in terms of dealing with the work from home. In terms of education, which our foundation is very focused on, more than 1.2 billion young people are out of school. That is a huge number considering that people are now accessing e-learning. Education is booming. However, the reality is that only 59 percent of the world’s population has access to the internet. 41 percent still do not have access to the Internet.23 It shows a huge division, a digital separation that again could have significant repercussions over the next few years. We should all be working on how to create enough jobs to deal with the trifecta of effects that are all coming together.

The coded impact on the economy is that people are losing jobs and going into the model of a gig economy with very little job stability and that loss of entry of jobs is also being exacerbated by technology. Technology is also coming in at the same time in which digitalization and artificial intelligence will creating and destroying many jobs at the same time.

It is going to be a challenge for the people, who lose their jobs, to learn and adapt new skill for the new economy that is being developed. Professionals will find it hard to retool and restructure their knowledge appropriately and fast enough as the world population is growing. When we focus on the next generation, we need to create a billion more jobs. Governments are pumping significant capital into the economy to keep growth increasing and protect their economies in order to fund public construction projects and other projects.

The main question is whether these actions will have enough of an effect to counter the significant loss of jobs that we foresee on the planet. The estimate is a loss of about half a billion jobs worldwide. When the need for another billion jobs is added to the already lost jobs, the challenge is overwhelming. The only way to deal with that gap created by the job losses is to encourage entrepreneurship globally to create new mindset amongst young people and elderly. We should be moving to an age of an entrepreneurial mindset, where everyone starts to think like an entrepreneur and encourage collaboration, cooperation and to work together not to waste resources globally. We should team up and think about how to implement the best practices in different parts of the world.

Rather than trying to create something on the basis of very little knowledge, we should share our existing experiences to create three million jobs a month for the next 30 years. That is a huge challenge. Borders being closed in many parts of the world stopping international trade. Although governments are valiantly trying to create economic growth through infusions of monetary support into the economy, we believe that the key is going to be entrepreneurial energy being unleashed entrepreneurs working together.

We are working with many other foundations to create the entrepreneurship sports generation. It is about bringing entrepreneurs together around the world and making entrepreneurship something that is not seen as an elitist province, but something that everyone can participate in the democratization of entrepreneurship. Sports is a very democratic architecture around the world that everyone feels they can watch, play, and be involved around the world whether it is football FIFA or the Olympics. We think entrepreneurship should be seen in the same light where everyone can play, be involved with that collaborative competitive spirit.

Everyone can actually try, restart and give some kind of a fillip to the economy globally to create more jobs, which I believe will be the major crisis for the next 5 to 10 years. We need to do our best to find a way out, not only to encourage global entrepreneurship and get government support behind, but also educate our young people to think with a new mindset for entrepreneurship in whatever they do. The age of stable jobs may be redefining itself.

Burak Haylamaz

Human Rights Solidarity | UK

Burak Haylamaz graduated from the University of Maastricht in the Netherlands with a degree in European Law. He also earned his Master’s of Law from University College London. Haylamaz focuses his practice within the field of data protection and intermediary liability, fintech compliance as well as human rights law. His recent works in the field of human rights have been published by several respectful institutions, including Harvard Human Rights Journal and Warsaw University Law Review. The spread and subsequent impact of the virus is beyond walls. However, attention is drawn towards the walls with a specific focus on the reactions of Turkish authorities to the pandemic in prisons. After the announcement of COVID-19 as a global pandemic, the Council of Europe’s Committee for the Prevention of Torture (CPT) immediately produced a set of principles for Member States to follow in their approach to people who are deprived of their liberty.27 As one of the signatory countries of the Council’s European Convention of Human Rights, Turkey is one of the addresses of these principles.

When we analyse the key recommendations, Member States are required;

• Improve the conditions of prisons to the level of international health and safety standards, i.e. all medical and hygienic needs of detainees and convicts;

• Ensure that prisoners have the access to medical care, medical equipment and medical staff at any time; • Ensure that restrictive measures can only be taken if they are necessary and proportionate. (such as video communication in lieu of family visit).

• Eensure that the absolute nature of Article 3 ECHR (prohibition of torture and ill-treatment) is not violated. Hence, no limitation or excuse is acceptable if a taken measure lead to the infringement of the prohibition.

• MSs are required to use alternative means of deprivation, such as early release, probation, house arrest, if applicable.

The rationale behind these principles is clear: any inadequate level of health care and safety measures can rapidly lead to situations falling within the scope of the term “inhuman and degrading treatment. So, the question arises if the Turkish criminal legal system and authorities have achieved to implement these principles enshrined under the ECHR as a response to combat with the pandemic.

In early spring, the news of COVID-19 cases increasing in prisons spread through the relatives of detainees who expressed the severe situation on Twitter. However, the first official statement about the spread of the pandemic in prisons was made on April 14th, 2020. Accordingly, there were 17 confirmed cases and three deaths at the time. Another statement came on May 22nd, 2020 where it was reported that a total of 82 confirmed cases only in Silivri prison and one prisoner had died.28 However, both opposition party representatives and human rights associations have raised an issue that the government has not been transparent about the number of COVID cases in and outside the prisons. The HDP (Peoples’ Democratic Party) produced a report by gathering data from the families and lawyers of prisoners. The report illustrates that the number of cases in prisons is much higher than the official statements and health and safety measures have not been taken properly.

The report underlined several problems:

• Wards and corridors are not cleaned regularly.

• Masks and gloves are not regularly distributed in prisons throughout the country.

• Most of the prisons are suffering from the overcrowded population that accelerates the spread of the virus.

• The food service in canteens were stopped, and the quality of the food sharply declined, which directly weaken the immune systems of prisoners; hence increase their chance of being affected by the virus.

• When a prisoner files a complaint in regard to COVID, instead of accessing medical staff, authorities automatically give them a medicine called “PLAQUENIL”, which is actually a medication used to combat malaria.

• Also, the state’s website enables to check the recent medical situation of the prisoners. However, inmates’ relatives and lawyers reported that the website is misleading as it states that inmates took medical support, which is just a temperature check carried out by guardians.

Without doubt, the report illustrates the fact that Turkey has been practicing a violation under Article 3 ECHR by failing to comply with its positive obligation to prevent inhuman and degrading treatment. On April 14th, 2020, the government enacted a highly contested amnesty law that enabled the release of around 90,000 convicts. It is a contested law because of several reasons:

1. It categorically excluded all political prisoners facing terrorism-related charges from its scope, which has been always interpreted broadly by the authorities. In other words, if the sick prisoner is a political prisoner charged with terrorism-related offenses, then his/her release for medical reasons is next to impossible.

2. Secondly, it only applies to those whose sentences were finalized – Hence, the release does not include those whose trial proceedings are pending.

The amnesty law has been strongly criticized because of its unfair and discriminatory nature, which contradict with Article 2 and 14 of the ECHR. This categorical blanket exclusion prevented the release of about an additional 50,000 prisoners, including journalists, human rights defenders, lawyers, activists and all other political prisoners arrested or convicted with terrorism-related charges . Can Dundar, a journalist in an exile, described the unfairness of the bill in the Washington Post by stating that “a bureaucrat who accepts bribes could be released, while the journalist who reports on the bribery would remain imprisoned.”

On the other hand, the bill is problematic under Article 6 ECHR (fair trial provision) because detainees whose case at pending cannot benefit from the amnesty law and they cannot finalise their proceedings due to the closure of the judiciary. From February to the middle of June, Turkish 29 https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2020/08/attacks-on-hrds-during-pandemic-report Courts had been suspended due to the pandemic and no trials were held. Although the courts have started to operate after mid-June, it is restricted due to health and safety reasons. So, there are a limited amount of trials for thousands of delayed proceedings. As a result of this backlog in the judiciary, detainees cannot benefit from the amnesty law and are continuously deprived from their liberty. In other words, detention, which is supposed to be a legal precaution, has turned into a punishment at the moment in Turkey.

Currently some of the detainees have been waiting for 2-3 years in prison for their indictments to be prepared or their trials to begin. Yet even during this pandemic, they were not released. According to the official rhetoric, they are kept imprisoned because “their statements could not be taken.” In other words, even though they could be easily released on parole, they are still kept imprisoned.

In a nutshell, when we analyse the reactions of Turkish authorities to cope with the impact of COVID-19 on prisons, we can detect a couple of potential ECHR infringements:

• Under Article 3 ECHR, Turkish authorities may be found failing to take necessary measures to ensure the right to health of all prisoners.

• The enacted amnesty law immensely contradicts Article 2 in conjunction with Article 14 ECHR due to its discriminatory nature as a result of a blanket exclusion of political prisoners.

• Finally, the enacted amnesty law and the backlog in court proceedings deprive detainees’ right to fair trial protected under Article 6 ECHR.

According to its commitments under international human rights law, Turkey is under a clear obligation to take necessary measures to ensure the right to health of all prisoners without discrimination. Under the current Law on the Execution of Sentences and Security Measures, prisoners are eligible for parole after they have served two thirds of their sentence. The draft law that is expected to be passed in Parliament within days reportedly makes prisoners eligible for parole after they have served half of their sentence. Under the new law, pregnant women and prisoners over 60 with documented health issues will be placed under house arrest. Individuals convicted of a small number of crimes, including on terrorism-related charges, will not be eligible for reduced sentences. The draft law does not apply to those held in pre-trial detention or whose conviction is under appeal.

In Turkey, anti-terrorism legislation is vague and widely abused in trumped up cases against journalists, opposition political activists, lawyers, human rights defenders and others expressing dissenting opinions. Thousands of people are behind bars for simply exercising their rights to freedom of expression and peaceful assembly. Now they are also faced with an unprecedented risk to their health. According to its commitments under international human rights law, Turkey is under a clear obligation to take necessary measures to ensure the right to health of all prisoners without discrimination.

Factual Example of the Consequences of Insufficient Measures: Turkish authorities refused to release Kurdish political prisoner Ms. Sabri Kaya. Mr. Kaya had two open-heart surgeries and over a dozen heart attacks in the past. Most recently, he had a heart attack and cerebral haemorrhage on 25 March 2020. He was hospitalized three times, each time treated under the intensive case, and then sent back to prison. Mr. Kaya was finally released on May 22nd. He died only a couple of hours later.

The three key words for this incident would be testing, releasing and isolating. Testing is the strongest emphasis put forth by the World Health Organization since the beginning of the Pandemic. Releasing refers to those who are there for minor offences or like conversion of fines, they should be released. Lastly isolating; releasing the prisoners who are in for minor offences and those who are there for serious crimes who can be under security measures, they must be isolated so that they are not affected by the virus.

There exists a positive obligation on a state action to protect or enforce a right, at common law and under Articles 2 and 3 of the ECHR, to protect all prisoners from death or serious harm (Keenan v United Kingdom (2001) 33 EHRR 38 at [111]). This duty arises because of the inherent vulnerability of detainees and has even more exacting requirements in relation to those who are “especially vulnerable by reason of their physical or mental condition” (Rabone v Pennine Care NHS Foundation Trust [2012] 2 AC 72 at [22]), meaning that human rights obligations may be stronger in cases of prisoners who have underlying health conditions.

The Turkish government’s positive proposal to reduce overcrowded prisons is undermined by the blanket exclusion of thousands of inmates convicted on terrorism charges, including those at risk of death from the virus and those who should not be in prison in the first place.

Basma Alawee

Florida Immigrant Coalition, State Refugee Organizer | USA

Basma Alawee came to the U.S. with her husband as a refugee in 2010, leaving behind her career as an engineer with the Ministry of Oil within the Government of Iraq. As a refugee and activist, her stories and activism have been featured in the media. Most recently, Alawee was nominated to be one of the Athena40 women in the world who are leading change and was the recipient of the 2019 OneJax Humanitarian Award. She was also elected the Florida delegate for the UNHCR Refugee Congress and is a board member of USAHello. Currently, she is the State Refugee Organizer with the Florida Immigrant Coalition. Basma Alawee discussed the challenges that COVID-19 posed for the refugees. Sharing the specific situations that make refugees vulnerable during this global health crisis, Alawee underlined that refugees have a higher risk of being exposed to COVID-19 due to the overcrowded housing underlying health conditions, lack of access to health care, and serving as the essential workers. Alawee also put a strong emphasis that when refugees are involved in the decision-making positions, they propose practical solutions to tackle the barriers that they face during the pandemic.

The Refugee Congress was founded in 2011 on the 60th anniversary of the Refugee Convention to convene and resettle refugees from all 50 states. Today, the Refugee Congress is the only national organization in the United States led by former refugees to advocate for refugees. Refugee Congress has members in all 50 states, and advocates with their elected officials for welcoming communities.

We Are All America, which is an organization that I am a Florida refugee organizer with Real America and the state of Florida, was founded in 2017 in response to the U.S. cutting its resettlement program to the lowest level ever during the worst international refugee crisis in modern history. We Are All America affirms our historical role as a refugee protection works to uphold and strengthen our nation’s commitment to welcome and protect those seeking freedom, safety and refuge in the United States.

Today, there are nearly 80 million people forcibly displaced, more than one percent of the world population. 26 million of them are refugees. More than 4 million people are asylum seekers throughout the world. Nearly 46 million individuals are internally displaced. 90 percent of refugees live in developing and low-income countries with the fastest growing infection rates, which makes refugees more vulnerable. There are a lot of shortages during the COVID-19; lack of medical supplies and therapeutic lack of accurate information about how to protect themselves. Vaccine nationalism may limit access for our communities which is often not included in country specific pandemic reopening plans. Refugees are impacted not just by COVID-19, but also by the fear that is increasing around the world. In response to the pandemic, it is estimated that 164 countries across the globe have limited or cut off access to asylum. In some cases, governments have clearly weaponized public health concerns to advance nativist political agenda, and the United States is a case in point.

Some examples of organizations who have been responding globally to the crisis of COVID-19, the World Health Organization, UNHCR and the UN Refugee Agency partnering to strengthen public health services to millions of forcibly displaced people. UNHCR launched a global 255 million appeal to lessen the impact of COVID-19 outbreaks within refugee communities, limited entry into and exit from refugee camps, and put efforts to allow refugee professionals within foreign nationals to serve as essential health workers.

The United States has resettled about three million refugees since 1980, since signing the Refugee Act from 1980 until 2016, the average number of yearly refugee arrivals to the US was 95,000. This year’s cap was supposed to bring 18,000 refugees in 2020. But up to date, we have received 9,772 and of course part of it because of COVID-19.

Starting from physical health, refugees have a higher risk of being exposed to COVID-19 due to the overcrowded housing underlying health conditions, lack of access to health care, and being essential workers. In the outbreak of the COVID in meatpacking plants, many refugee employees, have been affected.

When they consider jobs and income, Refugees International founded that over 60 percent of employed refugees work in sectors highly impacted by the pandemic. Refugees have high rates of small business ownership which have been deeply affected. Going back to family reunification, there has been a decline in refugee admission which means that thousands of families in the US are still waiting to reunite with their loved ones. Mental health of the refugees has also been traumatized due to quarantine.

The US government started responding to the challenges that refugees face with financial support, and different act such as the CARES ACT (Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act), the state and local relief funds, eviction moratoriums and expanding testing availability. However, the government relief is not available to all families, due to the limited resources. Refugees also face barriers to access resources because of a language barrier and fear of accessing these resources. There are still challenges with testing, treatment, increased in xenophobia and anti-Asian racism.

Even though many organization and community members have been responding, refugees are also responding to all of this crisis. We have many colleagues who have worked with us hand in hand around the country. Many projects have been implemented around the country that are led by former refugees, starting with partnering with local non-profits. We should not forget essential workers, and doctors volunteering at COVID-19 testing sites. Many refugees and immigrants serve as health care workers, teachers, service workers, farm workers and more.

The COVID-19 pandemic has reminded us that we are all interconnected and interdependent, we must use this time to come together, embrace our communities and work to build a better future. Refugee Congress stands ready and willing to strengthen our collaborations. “Let’s work together to fight against discrimination and for justice” says one of our refugee Congress delegates.

Refugees face unique vulnerabilities and challenges in public health crisis. Refugees are also assets during the public health crisis. They have a solution when refugees are allowed to practice their profession through improved routes to certification and license with their overseas credentials. Communities benefit from these skills. Expanding economic inclusion benefits everyone. Assistance to refugees enters the labor market and serves an essential worker role as doctors, nurses, caregivers, scientists, cleaners and many more.

Accessing to technology and digital resources can be a matter of life and death. Availability of services in more languages need to expand beyond the majority that are spoken. Refugees need assistance navigating the system to access available support and funding. Investing in former refugees and leadership and organizing on the ground for essential workers to produce inclusive policies and practices. Lastly, story sharing and the voices of refugees are important to lead a long-lasting change.

Jeff Schlegelmich

National Center for Disaster Preparedness, The Earth Institute, Columbia University, Director | USA

Jeff Schlegelmilch was the Manager for the International and NonHealthcare Business Sector for the Yale New Haven Health System Center for Emergency Preparedness and Disaster Response. Schlegelmilch led a study to determine the requirements for a national operational epidemiological modelling process. He is also a FEMA certified Master Exercise Practitioner and has been in a leadership role on numerous discussion and operationsbased exercises, including one of the largest municipal bioterrorism response exercises ever conducted. Schlegelmilch has also been published as an Opinion Contributor by The Hill and Fortune and has been used as a subject matter expert for numerous media outlets. Jeff Schlegelmilch presented the findings of the National Center for Disaster Preparedness on how the marginalized communities are disproportionately impacted by the COVID-19. He referred to the social aspect of the pandemic to implement better responding strategies considering the different structures inside the society. Schlegelmilch also discussed the political and financial aspect of the COVID-19 and underlined that fostering the connections within a community leads to a better recovery.

One of the key factors in responding to the COVID-19 is that it is a very uneven experience and it is going to continue to be as persistent. This is driven by a lot of determinants, from ecological conditions to the natural spread of the disease to population density and movement, seasonal effects that are not fully understood as well as within communities themselves.

The data was produced by the National Center for Disaster Preparedness in New York reports about the marginalized communities that are historically disenfranchised or bearing a disproportionate burden of this disease. The first outcome is that there is an outsized number of cases among African-Americans, Hispanic and Latino populations. These are individuals who are historically bearing the brunt of chronic diseases due to structural inequities and structural racism and a lot of policies. It predisposes people to outsized effects of disasters and in this case, infectious diseases. But also amplifying that it is these populations, those who are more likely to be essential workers. They have to go to work when many other people could stay home or work remotely. There is a social aspect to disease, and a social aspect to the response in combatting the Pandemic.

Second outcome in response to COVID-19 is the false narrative that the economy is either has to shut down or keep going while fighting the disease. When USA is compared with the European countries, it is seen that the lockdown is more aggressive, uniformly and temporarily in Europe. It depressed economic activity and then it bounced back faster than the US. Pandemic affects society in waves. What is important is that when you get through one wave, what do you do immediately afterwards to keep that transmission low. How do you prepare for the inevitability of another wave coming down the road?

Controlling disease spread creates options for the economy. It means that there can be re-openings, travels with restrictions, and makes individuals responsible for their actions. COVID-19 is not just about the illness; it is about loneliness. It is about not being able to work, being stuck at home, which has cascading effects across civil society. We see statistics for abuse. We see it in loss of traction for other public health threats, increases in STDs, loss of traction and in malaria prevention.

Third outcome is the hints on the rise in nationalistic tendencies. What is experienced in the USA is seen throughout the world. Politicians are pushing for dubious science, trying to say that improperly tested vaccines are ready, which is a conspiracy. This is just unfortunately undermining broader efforts for COVID-19 response. However, there is a silver lining, and some best practices. There is a spiritual effect in terms of seeing what it could be like if we look at climate change, if we look at the impact we are having on our society and. There are some things that we need to go back to the way they were before, but not everything. We have new methods in remote collaboration and education that are connecting people like never before such as telemedicine and e-commerce. These are not a replacement for in person transactions. However, it does open new avenues of connection. One can see investments in healthier buildings in terms of cleanliness, the quality of air purification, just better environments, professional education. Some people were all learning to be better online collaborators as well as seen a lot of incredible work across sectors, particularly in the biopharmaceutical sectors, in terms of sharing technologies and sharing platforms and also this relooking at domestic and regional production.

How much do people really want to move towards the fragility of global just-in-time supply chains? It saves a lot of money and obviously creates a vulnerability. When we talk about the total cost of disasters, there are vast majority of the countries identified which high income or upper middle-income societies are there is a lot of expensive materials in the way of disasters. When the actually impact on the overall economy is analyzed, what is the cost of the pandemic in relative to the Gross Domestic Product, the output of a country’s economy? The most affected were the vast majority of low income or lower middle-income countries. What the cost really represents is the loss of lives, loss of livelihoods and the human element of these disasters.

When we are talking about resilience and disasters, whether it is COVID-19 or a weather-related disaster, there is a political component. There is a component of the built environment, of the of the social environment, of the ecology in wherever the disaster is taking place. All of these various aspects of society come together to formulate resilience. There is no single answer. There is no single person responsible, but it is distributed across all of civil society and requires us to work towards that common goal. Otherwise, we risk focusing all your efforts on the built environment only to fracture the social cohesion and the social connectedness of certain groups.

The US right now has wildfires, tropical storms, coastal storms, tornadoes, and Derechos. To brief in a nutshell, those trends are going up in the US and across the world. These disasters will create more impact. The way that society has responded to these crises and how the responses are financed is continuing to change. In wealthier countries, there are a lot more insurance spreading the financial risk across the private sector to increasing access to the recovery. There is less of this coverage in developing areas, lower and middle-income countries, where financial assistance could be more important with the impact being the proportion of gross domestic product.

The inequalities in disasters are not just a humanitarian issue. It is matter of who lives and who dies, of who recovers and who does not. Fostering these connections within a community, neighbors helping neighbors leads to less death and better. Mental health outcomes and connections with the government tend to speed up the recovery process.

With that, uncertainty is here to stay. All people are in a place of uncertainty. Nobody knows when the pandemic will end. We do not know what the effectiveness of a vaccine will be. Building adaptive systems are going to be more successful in the face of uncertainty than planning for one specific event or one specific scenario. As we are seeing with climate change, the past can provide hints at what we’re going to see; but, it is not a good predictor of what is going to happen, particularly with the increase in extreme weather events. In fact, there’s no single indicator of resilience. We need to pull together all of the various aspects of community and managing uncertainty and adapting to these situations.

Anton Morozov

Member of the High Council of the LDPR, Deputy of the State Duma | Russia

Anton Morozov is the MP of the Liberal Democratic Party of Russia and a Member of State Duma Committee on International Affairs. Morozov also serves at the LDPR High Council as a Member. He graduated from the Moscow State University, Faculty of Physics in 1995 and completed the Russian Academy of State Service at the President of Russian Federation in 2005. Anton Morozov has worked at multiple levels of Liberal Democratic Party of Russia in different capacities, from Party Leader Assistant to LDPR HQ Chairman. From 2006 to 2011, he was the Deputy of Novgorod Provincial Duma. Mr. Morozov also served at the Permanent Mission of Russia to the UN as a Counselor. Anton Morozov discussed the best-practices in Russia to combat the COVID-19 Pandemic. He underlined that an effective strategy to fight the pandemic included the following: strengthening the country’s health care system, expansion of intensive care capacities and measures to slow down the infection. Morozov also talked about the Government of Russia`s response to the pandemic with preventive measures to curb the spread of the coronavirus disease.

Humankind has never faced as many global challenges as it does today. The COVID-19 Pandemic has become a real global health and economic crisis. Russia was affected by COVID-19 like many other countries and became a part of the ongoing pandemic of this disease. There are many speculations about the origin of that disease; some sources insist that this virus is a kind of bio-weapon.

However, all scientific analyses found no evidence that the virus was made in a laboratory or otherwise artificially engineered. It was confirmed that the virus came to Russia on January 31, 2020 through two Chinese citizens visiting Tyumen (Siberia) and Chita (Russian Far East). Both Chinese were tested positive for the virus. As the first step to prevent virus spreading, the extensive testing had started and the border with China was closed.

From February 2020 on, passengers arriving to Moscow by air from the most affected COVID-19 countries such as China, Iran, and South Korea were examined by a number of medical workers in protective gear to conduct passengers’ screening. People, who came from Europe before the flights were cancelled, had their temperatures checked and were sent home for a mandatory fourteen day quarantine.

On March 2, 2020 the infection spread from Italy and we brought in additional measures such as cancelling mass public events, closing schools, theaters and museums as well as shutting the international borders and declaring a nonworking period, which, after two extensions, lasted until May 11, 2020. By the end of March, the vast majority of regions and cities, including Moscow, had imposed lockdowns. However, by April 17, 2020 COVID cases had been confirmed all over the country.

As a transcontinental country, Russia had the highest number of confirmed cases in Europe and the second highest in Asia after India. However, at the global level, Russia had less cases than the United States, Brazil and India. We have had over one million total cases, over 170 thousand active cases, around 900 thousand recovered and close to two thousand deaths. Those figures are quite impressive; however, as per 1000 population Russia takes the 40th place by total cases and only the 100th place by the number of deaths. Furthermore, we are the first by number of COVID tests per 1000 population.

Over 38 million coronavirus tests have been done already and the members of the Liberal Democratic Party of Russia and its MPs are among the most active participants of this campaign. All Party headquarters have tests twice a month.

Our effective strategy to fight the pandemic included the following: strengthening the country’s health care system, expansion of intensive care capacities and measures to slow down the infection. A great number of hospitals all over the country got the “red zone” wards to treat COVID-19 patients. On a very short notice, Russian Army has established 18 field emergency hospitals to cover remote and the most affected areas. Only mass vaccination could stop any pandemic, therefore the main Russia research institutes started to work on it from the very beginning. Clinical trials of coronavirus vaccine, developed by the Gamaleya Research Institute were officially completed on August 1, 2020 followed by six other research institutes.

The Government of Russia has initially responded to the pandemic with preventive measures to curb the spread of coronavirus disease, which involved imposing quarantines, carrying raids on potential virus carriers, and using facial recognition to impose quarantine measures. Other measures to prevent crisis in Russia included banning the export of medical masks, random checks on the Moscow transport system, including Moscow subway, cancellation of large-scale public events. The Russian government has also taken measures to prevent foreign citizens from heavily affected countries to visit Russia. Regional governments have also responded to the pandemic by imposing their own preventive measures in their local communities.

On March 29, 2020, stay-at-home order for all residents was introduced in Moscow. Citizens were not allowed to leave their homes except in cases of emergency medical care and other threats to life and health. Only a limited number of people from vital industries were allowed to travel to work, Moscow citizens could make purchases only in the nearest shop or pharmacy, to walk pets at a distance not exceeding 100 meters from their residence, as well as to take out the garbage. Socially safe distance of one and a half meters should be kept between people. The similar self-isolation regime was imposed in Moscow region and many other regions and cities. Such limitations were not popular among our population and even caused some social tension.

Testing, identification of cases, tracing contacts, isolation are all measures that W.H.O. proposes and recommends; they were in place at the times all over in Russia. This disease affected the whole nation with no exception. On April 25, two cases of COVID were confirmed in the State Duma, the lower chamber of the Federal Assembly, our Parliament. On May 13, 2020 the Chairman of the State Duma Vyacheslav Volodin announced that five Deputies had been infected. On May 20, the Chairwoman of the Federation Council, the Upper Chamber of our Parliament Valentina Matvienko said that five Senators had recovered from COVID-19. Thus, over 30 Deputies of our Parliament in total were affected by coronavirus

The Liberal Democratic Party of Russia (LDPR) and its Chairman Vladimir Zhirinovsky were among the first who started an active campaign against COVID-19. From the very beginning on February 19, LDPR Chairman demanded that all Duma Deputies should strictly comply with the rules of personal hygiene: wear protective masks and gloves, periodically and properly clean hands, maintain safe distance with others. Furthermore, Vladimir Zhirinovsky demanded to stop all handshakes and greeting hugs. As a result, being the first in those protective measures, LDPR Duma Deputies have avoided getting sick by COVID-19.

It was also decided to minimize the number of Deputy Assistants in the State Duma. The general access to Duma was limited and the majority of Deputy Assistants had started to work online from home. Duty trips for Duma Deputies were canceled as well as many public gatherings planned for the Spring-Summer 2020 were indefinitely postponed, including the annual international largescale Forum “Development of the Parliamentarism.” The State Duma authorities announced extra sanitization measures, limitation of quantity for parliamentary hearings and round tables.

On April 30, the Minister of Health of the Russian Federation Mikhail Murashko came to the State Duma to meet LDPR Deputies and the Party Chairman Vladimir Zhirinovsky. Both sides discussed the joint efforts to contain COVID – 19 spreading, how to provide people with low income with required medical assistance and medicines. Telecommunication has already proved to be the most effective measure to minimize COVID spread thus further emergency telemedicine development was the main topic of the discussion. Talking about preventive measures LDPR Chairman again pointed out the urgent necessity to wear protective masks and gloves in public.

When Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin was in Duma on July 22 with his report of the Cabinet recent activities, Vladimir Zhirinovsky draw attention to the fact, that the Prime Minister is not wearing protective mask giving a wrong example for all the others, especially taking into consideration that Mikhail Mishustin got sick with COVID – 19 last April and even was hospitalized. Other LDPR Deputies also actively participated in the joint fight against COVID-19 with concentration on the importance of preventive measures. LDPR Fraction Deputies made several initiatives and proposals to fight COVID-19 more effectively. Among LDPR Fraction initiatives are a proposal to reserve a significant share of advertising spaces in the city center for anti-pandemic campaign, to provide schoolchildren and students with protective masks free of charge and even to start a new school year one month later on October 1, 2020 to minimize the risk of pandemic among our children. Being a Member of State Duma Committee on International Affairs, I advocate against premature reopening of international flights to resort areas. COVID-19 came to our country from abroad and we should not forget about it.

On August 11 2020, Russia became the first country across the globe to register a vaccine against the coronavirus infection. The vaccine was developed by the Russian Health Ministry’s Gamaleya National Research Center underwent clinical trials in July. This great achievement of Russian medical science got full support from the LDPR. Vladimir Zhirinovsky proposed to reward all people involved. The Sputnik vaccine proved again that Russia is one of the greatest medical powers.

Western countries are trying to neglect our achievements, because they were looking for monopoly in vaccine production that could bring billions of super profits for their pharmaceutical giants. Russia also took part in an international project to develop and distribute a vaccine against coronavirus of a new type, one of the founders of which is the World Health Organization.

Moreover, the Chairman of the Liberal Democratic Party of Russia Vladimir Zhirinovsky was among the first injected with the first in the world registered coronavirus vaccine. He also called to vaccinate all the party’s 300 000 members as volunteers at the first test stage and we have already started our registration and medical tests for this forthcoming vaccination.

Yes, our country had some achievements in that fight against COVID-19 pandemic. However, we could not rest until the threat could be eliminated completely. With reference to the LDPR Chairman’s opinion, the ongoing pandemic revealed weak points and mistakes of the Russia country health care policy system; therefore, the forthcoming parliamentary session should be fully concentrated on required corrective measures.

We fully support the UN position that the COVID-19 Pandemic is more than a health crisis; it is an economic crisis, a humanitarian crisis, a security crisis, and a human rights crisis. Coming out of this crisis will require a wholeof-society, whole-of-government and whole-of-theworld approach driven by compassion and solidarity. On September 11, 2020 the UN General Assembly adopted the resolution for a “comprehensive and coordinated response” to the COVID-19 Pandemic which became an important contribution to enhancing global solidarity and give more possibility for international cooperation. Finally, no country in the world will be able to tackle COVID-19 on its own. The main strategy should be to act collectively so that nobody could be left behind.