Disturbing details have emerged from dozens of countries that a “toxic lockdown culture” against the COVID-19 pandemic has impacted drastically on society’s most vulnerable members, the UN human rights Office (OHCHR) said on Monday. The development follows UN Secretary-General António Guterres’s call last week for States not to use the COVID crisis as a pretext for repressive measures, in which he urged Governments to recognize that the threat was the “virus, not people”.

The UN is working closely with the authorities, civil society and the private sector in Bangladesh, as the south Asian country braces for the COVID-19 pandemic. For the latest in our occasional series of blogs from the UN's network of Resident Coordinators who lead the Organization's Country Teams, here's Mia Seppo, in Bangladesh. 

Lessons learned during the Ebola outbreak in Liberia six years ago are helping the West African country to confront the COVID-19 pandemic, according to the UN Population Fund (UNFPA) which is working alongside the World Health Organization (WHO) on surveillance and the coordination of contact tracing.

The coronavirus pandemic has spawned new threats to press freedom in some countries, according to the UN human rights chief, who declared on Friday that “credible, accurate reporting is a lifeline for all of us”.