2020: A Yet More Devastating Year Closes With At Least Some Signs Of Hope

UN Secretary-General António Guterres briefs the media on the socio-economic impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic. Credit: UN Photo/Mark GartenBy Farhana Haque RahmanROME, Dec 23 2020 (IPS) Despite its grim record of multiple natural disasters and a deepening climate crisis, one could be forgiven for looking back on 2019 with a degree of nostalgia. There is no disguising the extent of the calamity wrought this year by COVID-19, yet as we approach the end of 2020 we may also draw strength from positive developments emerging. No review of 2020, as seen through the eyes of IPS reporters and contributors around the world, could begin without paying our respects to the nearly 1.5 million people who have died from the coronavirus, many of them care workers trying to save the lives of others. But the pandemic, declared as such by the World Health Organization on March 11, has inflicted much wider damage in exposing the frailties of governments, societies, economies and health systems, particularly in those countries that chose to ignore the warnings and advice of the WHO and played down the crisis. The US administration in particular sought to hide its shortcomings by attacking and ultimately withdrawing from the WHO, while in contrast Rwanda, for example, had set up a COVID-19 joint task force even before the pandemic was declared. But coming on top of the climate emergency, conflict and economic decline, COVID-19 has brought at least seven countries to the brink of famine, leading ...
Source: IPS Inter Press Service - Health - Category: International Medicine & Public Health Authors: Tags: Aid Armed Conflicts Climate Change Economy & Trade Education Environment Featured Financial Crisis Food & Agriculture Food Security and Nutrition Gender Global Headlines Health Human Rights Humanitarian Emergencies Migratio Source Type: news