Tuesday,
The New York Times
April Hansson
Breaking News
The latest updates
In late December 2019, people in Wuhan,
China began to get sick with a previously
unknown pneumonia, marking the
beginning of a new infectious disease, later
identified as a new type of coronavirus and
named SARS-CoV-2. The disease the virus
causes was named coronavirus disease
2019 (COVID-19) by the World Health
Organization (WHO).
WHO declared the COVID-19 outbreak a
Public Health Emergency of International
Concern on Jan. 30, 2020, and a pandemic
on March 11, 2020.
As of June 2023, this profile is not
regularly updated.
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EDUCATION
The latest updates
Mirjam Nilsson
COVID-19 has dramatically
increased learning poverty, which “is
defined as the percentage of 10-year-
old children who cannot read and
understand a simple story, by 2030.
New data jointly produced with the
UIS show that 53 percent of 10-year-
old children in low- and middle-
income countries cannot read and
Covid-19 Pandemic
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Kayla Lewis
Covering COVID-19: How headlines evolved as
Daily news updates and opinions
Coronavirus started making international
headlines at the beginning of 2020. We
mapped the progression of coverage, from
the first cluster of pneumonia cases reported
in Wuhan (January) to worldwide cases
surpassing 1 million (April). Scroll down to
see the COVID-19 story placement escalate
from small headlines scattered amid
homepages and front pages to total
dominance across all sections.
Vaccine/Hesitancy
The latest updates
Kymbat Galymzhan
There are significant concerns about
the equitable distribution of vaccines
both in the U.S. and around the
world.
On an international level, this means
continuing to support sufficient
production and distribution of
vaccines supporting the medical
239/8
Both the WHO and the U.S. have ended
their public health emergencies related to
COVID-19. Yet, the virus continues to
spread across the world, despite the
implementation of vaccines. The vaccine
disparity continues to highlight the
inequities around the globe.
In the U.S. and other Global North
countries, the intentional
disinformation/misinformation campaigns
will continue to leave many people
unvaccinated and at-risk. The virus is
continually mutating. There is a risk with
box designs that each
that complement a strain
other.will be
created that is vaccine resistant. All of
these factors create a climate and case for
ongoing philanthropic support.
Menta health/ Psycho-social
support
The latest updates
Reda Sayegh
Serious mental health needs have
emerged throughout the pandemic.
During a CDP webinar on support
for mental health, bereavement and
grief Huong Diep, a consulting
psychologist with the Headington
Institute said, “There are no safety
zones anymore. All of us are
simultaneously experiencing and
understand a simple story. In the
poorest countries, the number is often
close to 80 percent.”
In low- and middle-income countries,
ten new young people (out of 100)
entered learning poverty because of
the pandemic, leaving only 32/100 not
in learning poverty.
This rolled back gains under the
Sustainable Development Goals for
Education. According to the World
Bank, “Due to learning losses and
increases in dropout rates, this
generation of students stand to lose
an estimated $10 trillion in earnings,
or almost 10 percent of global GDP,
and countries will be driven even
further off-track to achieving their
Learning Poverty goals – potentially
increasing Learning Poverty levels to
63 percent.”
At least 147 million children missed
half their schooling between 2020 and
2022. According to UNICEF, when
schools reopened many students did
not return to the classroom (e.g., a
43% decrease in Liberia in December
2020, 3x as many students out of
school in South Africa from March
2020 to July 2021 and 1 in 10 students
missing in Uganda when schools
reopened after two years).
This is not limited to schools
internationally; similar problems
have arisen domestically.
infrastructure and building vaccine
awareness. Given that vaccines have
rolled out globally, it is important
that vaccine confidence is built in
communities and vaccine hesitancy is
addressed to increase uptake.
Given that vaccine rates are so low in
many countries, programs designed
to prevent and limit transmission
should continue to be prioritized,
particularly in fragile countries and
countries with weak health systems
and infrastructure along with high
caseloads and death rates.
As the focus of vaccine support moves
to lower- and middle-income
countries, supporting a strong health
system will be critically important.
This includes ensuring adequate
supplies of personal protective
equipment (PPE), clean syringes and
injection supplies, training for
personnel and staffing needs.
On the domestic level the focus is on
education and supporting targeted
distribution. This education includes
providing accurate vaccine
implementation information to
encourage hesitant populations to get
the vaccine and support immunity for
the greater good.
Additionally, they should support
organizations advocating for and
providing equitable access to
populations who have been
disproportionately impacted by the
pandemic, such as Black, Indigenous,
and Latinx people.
There have been additional vaccine
implications. In the U.S., decreases in
childhood vaccination rates, which
occurred during lockdowns at the
height of COVID-19, have returned
to near-normal levels. However, not
all children who missed vaccines
during that period have caught up.
So, while weekly rates of vaccinations
have been restored, there is a
decrease in the number of children
who are up to date on their vaccines.
Internationally, there is a much
different story. A new report from
UNICEF found: “New data indicates
declining confidence in childhood
vaccines of up to 44 percentage points
in some countries during the COVID-
19 pandemic … 67 million children
missed out on one or more
vaccinations over three years due to
service disruption caused by strained
health systems and diversion of scarce
resources, conflict and fragility, and
decreased confidence.”
Research from UNICEF and the
WHO in July 2022, called this “the
largest sustained decline in childhood
vaccinations in approximately 30
years.” They attributed the decline to
“many factors including an increased
number of children living in conflict
and fragile settings where
immunization access is often
challenging, increased
misinformation and COVID-19
related issues such as service and
supply chain disruptions, resource
diversion to response efforts, and
grieving during this disaster,
therefore our emotional bandwidths
are stressed and limited.”
An analysis of four Pew Research
Center surveys found that at least
four-in-ten U.S. adults have
experienced high levels of
psychological distress at some point
during the pandemic. In the first year
of COVID-19, the World Health
Organization found the global
prevalence of anxiety and depression
increased by 25%.
Funders can support organizations
providing equitable access to mental
health/physical health services for
those of all ages. Additional support is
needed for survivors of trauma from
the pandemic and the layered
traumas of other life circumstances
exacerbated by the pandemic.
Two ongoing areas that need support
are services that help people find and
access mental health and physical
health resources, known as navigation
services, and support for
organizations providing mental
health support and services to
frontline healthcare workers to
mitigate burnout.
An American Psychological
Association study on stress found
that, “Inflation was reported as a
source of stress for the vast majority
of adults (83%), and the majority of
all adults also said the economy
(69%) and money (66%) are a
significant source of stress. Of those
who said money is a source of stress,
most said that stress is about having
enough money to pay for basic
needs.”
For youth, “numerous studies
observed sharp increases in rates of
depression, anxiety, loneliness, and
suicide attempts.” Dr Nina Heinrichs,
professor at the Department of
Psychology at the University of
Bremen, said that it is likely that 20-
25% of children will suffer from
mental health challenges due to the
pandemic, an increase from 10-20%
prior to 2020.
containment measures that limited
immunization service access and
availability.”