Hunger can kill more people in the world than covid-19 this year 2020.
The people say: “there is no hunger that does not give in abundance”. This time we face both. Hunger and plenty.
Projections cited by the Bloomberg agency a few days ago indicate that the lack of food will cause more deaths later this year than the covid-19. At the end of the year, there may be 12,000 people starving to death due to the effects of the pandemic, more than deaths caused directly by the virus.
What is more funny is that this happens when there are global food surpluses that cannot be disposed of. Either because the flow circuits do not work or because the supply routes have undergone drastic changes. Just think about the number of closed restaurants to better understand that those who grow have less to sell to.
Of course, people continue to consume at home, except for the millions of unemployed that the pandemic has caused. These are now very far from the consumption patterns to which they were accustomed.
In 2020 there will be 132 million people going hungry in the world, but, according to UN forecasts, the crisis will be felt at least until 2030, a year in which it is estimated that 909 million will be malnourished. A figure that in the pre-Covid scenario was lower, at 840 million.
Covid-19 further exposed inequalities by brutally defining who has and who is not entitled to eat.
Let us hope that the vaccine – which we all hope for – will not aggravate the scenario for those who die without food. Especially because against hunger … nobody waits for the vaccine.
P.S. – Five years ago, Alan Kurdi, aged two, fled Syria with his parents and brother. He was wearing a red sweater and blue shorts. That’s how we saw him dressed, when he landed on a European Mediterranean beach. Photography went around the world …
In five years, more than 10,000 people died who crossed the same sea in search of a life. This year alone, 558 have died.
*PLATAFORMA Director
