The current situation is that 40 million confirmed cases have been reported. However, this is a gross under-reporting and the true total is more likely about 300 million cases.
A total of 1.1 million deaths. IT will take years to finalise the true total as in many countries we will have to wait for complete data from the next round of censuses.
We are really concerned about the effects this is having on the children and the poor people of our world.
The heads of UNICEF, WHO, FAO and World Food Program have given the following estimates:
The number of people in LMICs facing acute food insecurity will nearly double to 265 million by the end of 2020. UNICEF estimates that the provision of food and nutrition to starving children around the world has declined by 30% this year due to logistic problems and reduced resources. We are faced with more people in need and less food being distributed.1,2
WHO states that there have been substantial declines in child immunisation this year due to the disruption of the virus: The likelihood that a child born today will be fully vaccinated with all the globally recommended vaccines by the time she reaches the age of 5 is less than 20%. This is a tragedy.
There are problems with the development of COVID vaccines. Two of the most promising trials are currently suspended due to complications. Its anyone’s guess, but it looks as if it will be well into 2021 before a WHO approved vaccine is available. The results of the WHO trial of COVID therapies, remdesivir, hydroxychloroquine, lopinavir (fixed-dose combination with ritonavir) and Interferon-β1a (mainly subcutaneous; initially with Lopinavir, later not) has been released and it was found that none of these therapies work.3
These are cold facts hard facts that we read every day of the week. We can’t ignore them – as public health experts and academics we must act on them.
But behind these statistics, there is a troubling human side. In a forthcoming issue of the Asia Pacific Journal of Public Health, we will publish an article from Bangladesh on the human impact of the virus.4 It’s a survey but includes a number of case studies that are very moving. This study found that 94.1% of the respondents’ livelihood was affected by COVID-19 outbreak. To 83% of respondents, the level of livelihood impact was high to extreme. This level of impact indicates that the lower-income people were getting more marginalized than before and were becoming members of the hardcore poor due to COVID-19. A 29-years old housemaid stated:
I live in a slum. I and my rickshaw-puller husband are jobless now. We have not prepared for this situation at all. We have borrowed some money from others. We cannot think about our future and worried about this so much. How can we survive if the situation goes like this? Our neighbours are also passing the same condition; everyone is tensed about their livelihoods. Coronavirus made us poorer and destroyed all our future.
Housemaid
As the country’s lockdown had continued for about nearly three months, many poor people were worried how they would manage their family expenses. A day labourer (30-years old) said:
Day labourers are mostly affected. I could earn 200-300 taka (about 4 USD) per day before coronavirus outbreak, but now have no income due to lockdown situation, already sold our domestic animals and took loan from a local NGO for survival. We cannot take much food in our family meals; we have no option but die from hunger if this condition remains for few more months.
Day Labourer
A garment’s worker (39-years old) expressed her feelings:
We are suffering from different mental stresses as no cash in hand; don’t know how we will face the future; cannot sleep properly at night. It is better to die of coronavirus than the hunger. Most people cannot eat properly, eat only once in a day. We are scared of our future; if the situation continues we would not survive. Most poor (people) have been passing a horrible time as most of them borrowing money to manage their everyday meal. Debt is increasing. Only God knows what will happen
Garment Worker
We hope these stories don’t end in tragedy. But it will depend on the International Community putting aside petty differences about “who is to blame” and becoming less selfish and putting real resources into saving the poor of the world. We need to ensure everyone can access face masks, has had wash and understands social distancing.
References:
- Headey D, Heidkamp R, Osendarp S, et al. Impacts of COVID-19 on childhood malnutrition and nutrition-related mortality. Lancet. 2020;396(10250):519-521.
- Fore HH, Dongyu Q, Beasley DM, Ghebreyesus TA. Child malnutrition and COVID-19: the time to act is now. Lancet. 2020;396(10250):517-518.
- WHO Solidarity trial consortium (2020) Repurposed antiviral drugs for COVID-19 –interim WHO SOLIDARITY trial results. doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/2020.10.15.20209817 medRxiv preprint
- Asia Pacific Journal of Public Health (2021) Psychological and Livelihood Impacts of COVID-19 on Bangladeshi Lower Income People (accepted paper)
Colin Binns, MBBS, PhD
Editor-in-Chief, Asia-Pacific Journal of Public Health
School of Public Health, Curtin University, Perth, Australia
Wah Yun Low, PhD
Managing Editor, Asia-Pacific Journal of Public Health
President, Asia-Pacific Academic Consortium for Public Health
Deputy Executive Director, Asia Europe Institute
University of Malaya, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
Victor Hoe Chee Wai, MBBS, PhD
Webmaster, Asia-Pacific Academic Consortium for Public Health
Department of Social and Preventive Medicine, Faculty of Medicine
University of Malaya, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
