UN Secretary General warns of loss of $8.5 trillion in global output due to pandemic

The pandemic has infected 5,829,474 people and claimed 360,776 lives worldwide, till now according to Johns Hopkins University.

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UN chief Antonio Guterres on Thursday warned that the COVID-19 pandemic will cause unimaginable devastation, usher in hunger and famine of historic proportions, and lead to a loss of USD 8.5 trillion in global output, the sharpest contraction since the Great Depression, if nations did not respond with unity and solidarity.

“We must avoid it. The pandemic has demonstrated our fragility. Despite all the technological and scientific advances of recent decades, we are in an unprecedented human crisis, because of a microscopic virus,” the UN Secretary-General said on Thursday to the high-level event on Financing For Development.

“Unless we act now, the COVID-19 pandemic will cause unimaginable devastation and suffering around the world. Hunger and famine of historic proportions. Sixty million more people pushed into extreme poverty. Up to half the global workforce – 1.6 billion people – without livelihoods,” Antonio Guterres said.