Will More Die From Starvation than COVID-19?

The world is facing multiple famines in just a matter of months. The UN has warned that the coronavirus pandemic will push an additional 130 million people to the brink of starvation.

Famines could take hold in “about three dozen countries” in a worst-case scenario, the executive director of the World Food Programme (WFP) said in an address on Tuesday.

Ten of those countries already have more than 1 million people on the verge of starvation.

The UN cited conflict, an economic recession, a decline in aid and a collapse in oil prices as factors likely to lead to vast food shortages.

“While dealing with a Covid-19 pandemic, we are also on the brink of a hunger pandemic…There is also a real danger that more people could potentially die from the economic impact of Covid-19 than from the virus itself.”- David Beasley told the UN’s security council.

The WFP had already warned that 2020 would be a devastating year for numerous countries ravaged by poverty or war, with 135 million people facing crisis levels of hunger or worse. Their updated projections nearly double that number.

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