The United Nations General Assembly voted on Thursday to hold a summit on the COVID-19 pandemic on Dec. 3-4 to respond to the spread of the coronavirus around the globe and its “unprecedented” effects on societies, economies, jobs, global trade and travel.
The General Assembly voted 150-0, with the United States, Israel and Armenia abstaining, on a resolution authorizing the meeting.
It will include prerecorded speeches by world leaders and a presentation and discussion led by World Health Organization chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus.
Assembly President Volkan Bozkir called the high-level special session “a historic moment and a test for multilateralism” that “will be defined by our collective action on one of the most critical issues of our time.”
England became the latest European country to enter a second coronavirus lockdown on Thursday as the continent emerged as the region with the most infections and the United States set a new daily record with nearly 100,000 cases.
European governments have imposed tough new restrictions in an attempt to contain a fresh wave of the pandemic across the continent that has once again become the epicentre of the health crisis.
The latest data shows more than half of the some 500,000 fresh cases recorded globally each day last week were in Europe, and on Thursday the continent's 11.6 infections surpassed Latin America and the Caribbean's 11.4 million.
