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ECB's German representative and chief economist Jurgen Stark resigned from the ECB's Executive Board to express his opposition to ECB bond purchases of sovereign bonds of Greece, Spain and Italy. This follows the resignation of Axel Weber as head of the Deutsche Bundesbank in June 2011, who raised similiar concerns. The concern is that the ECB is exceeding its charter by buying sovereign bonds, taking on a political role and adding new risks. Stark wrote in an op-ed in the German newspaper Handelsblatt- as government efforts so far have failed, "far-reaching reform of the mechanism for decisions and sanctions is needed... We find ourselves in a situation in which massive sustainability risks in public budgets are eroding financial stability."

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Palaiologos of the Kathimerini newspaper in Athens, Greece, says the early euphoria of support for Tsipras is fading, as the negotiations with the EU require Tsipras to go back on his election pledges and require difficult choices. He points to a poll from the University of Macedonia putting government support of its negotiating strategy in April 2015 at 45.5%, down from 72% in February 2015. He says the Syriza government has conveyed different and contradictory messages, wasting a lot of the goodwill in Europe for Greece's position, and by backtracking on agreements put Greece back into recession. Greece needs to take responsibility for how deep the crisis is compared to a country like Ireland or Portugal, because of dysfunctional public administration and political systems, says Palaiologos. The EU and Greece need to make a fresh start after all the false starts of the early part of 2015.

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With about 81% of people over 12 years getting 2 doses of vaccination, Netherlands has one of the highest vaccination rates in Europe. The recent surge in UK, Germany and Austria has also hit Netherlands with 16,000 new cases per day. A partial lockdown starts on November 13 for 3 weeks in Netherlands.

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"250 million doses of vaccine Made in France, that's our goal," says French president Macron, as French firm Delpharm manufactures final vaccine products in vials of the Pfizer vaccine at its factory in France. This should boost France's vaccination drive which got off to a slow start.

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Closing fast in Asian countries have helped these countries to reopen faster. South Korea and Taiwan are examples of swift action and the benefit of experience from past epidemics, public cooperation and understanding that is not as prevalent in the U.S. and Europe. SARS and MERS prepared Asian countries for this virus compared to countries in Europe and the U.S.

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New information from the recordings of the World Health Organization as reported by Associated Press, show that during the week of January 6 WHO's lead experts were having difficulty getting information about the coronavirus outbreak in Wuhan, China. Maria Van Kerkhove, an epidemiologist and the WHO technical lead for coronavirus says she was going on very minimal information. The WHO's top official in China, Gauden Galea, says in one of the recordings that they were in the situation where information was given to WHo officials in China only 15 minutes prior to it going on China's state television CCTV. In early January Michael Ryan, the WHO's chief of emergencies, says he feared a repeat of the SARS epidemic in 2002, which was initially covered up by Chinese officials, according to the AP report shown in the Guardian. Ryan says he found himself in the same situation as in 2002 SARS, endlessly trying to get updates from China about what was going on, and adds that WHO barely got out of the SARS with its reputation intact given the transparency issues, in the AP report shown in the Guardian. By June 1 about 6.3 million confirmed cases are reported of coronavirus in the world and 375,000 deaths, and huge losses to economies and people. China's authorites did not lockdown Wuhan till January 23, by which time this report in the Guardian says at least 5 million residents had left. China denied entry requested by the U.S.on January 6 for a team of experts into Wuhan, The team was not allowed into Wuhan for a crucial period of 6 weeks during which the virus had time to spread in the western world. This is taken up in Mr. Trump's letter to the WHO, and the work of Gro Harlem Brundtland is clearly stated in the conclusion of that letter. Brundtland was head of the WHO at the time of the SARS epidemic in 2003, and acted decisively with early warnings to prevent its spread.  Because of the extremely contagious nature of the coronavirus the failure of early warning systems resulted in enormous damage to lives and economic losses worldwide.  ...