PRI - APM

The COVID-19 outbreak has set in motion a reshuffling of global powers.

Experts say international cooperation is critical to combat COVID-19. But as more and more countries close their borders, global leadership is also retreating behind national walls. 

Yaneilys Ayuso remembers their multicultural studies class during their junior year of high school as the place where they learned about issues that now matter most to them: human rights, racial justice, immigration, women’s rights and the rights of farmworkers and domestic workers. 

It’s also where they learned to channel their sense of injustice into political organizing. 

Messages from the World Health Organization have become a soundtrack of the new coronavirus pandemic. WHO’s director-general, Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, leads near-daily updates, where he stresses guidelines and recommendations for the global response. 

But what exactly is the role of the WHO, especially in times of crisis?

It's going to get worse before it gets better. That is the message from Dr. Deborah Birx, the response coordinator for the White House's coronavirus task force, who gave her predictions on Monday of what could happen in the coming months. 

"If we do things together, well, almost perfectly, we could get in the range of 100,000 to 200,000 fatalities," she said on NBC's "Today" show.  

That's a best-case scenario if the US does things right.

United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres pleaded with warring parties across the world last week.

The coronavirus, he said, illustrates the folly of war.

“I am calling for an immediate global ceasefire in all corners of the world,” he said. “It is time to put armed conflict on lockdown and focus together on the true fight of our lives.”

The spread of the coronavirus is scary everywhere. But in Syria, which has faced war for more than nine years, humanitarian aid and health care is already stretched razor-thin.

Related: COVID-19: The latest from The World 

Syria on Wednesday implemented a nationwide curfew from 6 p.m. to 6 a.m. as lockdown measures to counter the spread of coronavirus were extended, according to residents and state media.

About a third of the world is on some sort of lockdown as governments scramble to reign in the spread of the novel coronavirus — and the list keeps growing. In many places, only essential businesses such as pharmacies and grocery stores are allowed to stay open.

When climate journalist Emily Atkin was asked to pledge to stop flying to help prevent climate change earlier this year, she said no. 

“I gave my whole spiel about how we put so much pressure on ourselves not to do anything to exacerbate the climate crisis,” she said. “We aren’t asking what airlines are doing or the money that they're putting into political causes, the effort that they've put in to fight any type of climate regulation.”

As people across the globe enter self-isolation, what's happening to people who were already in lockdown before the coronavirus pandemic?

Hundreds of thousands of people are in prison across the world. And without many resources, medical and otherwise, prisoners are at high risk for contracting the coronavirus. 

India's Prime Minister Narendra Modi ordered a three-week lockdown of Asia's third-largest economy starting Wednesday to slow the spread of the novel coronavirus.