example of speech about covid 19 pandemic

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2 Minute Speech on Covid-19 (CoronaVirus) for Students

The year, 2019, saw the discovery of a previously unknown coronavirus illness, Covid-19 . The Coronavirus has affected the way we go about our everyday lives. This pandemic has devastated millions of people, either unwell or passed away due to the sickness. The most common symptoms of this viral illness include a high temperature, a cough, bone pain, and difficulties with the respiratory system. In addition to these symptoms, patients infected with the coronavirus may also feel weariness, a sore throat, muscular discomfort, and a loss of taste or smell.

10 Lines Speech on Covid-19 for Students

The Coronavirus is a member of a family of viruses that may infect their hosts exceptionally quickly.

Humans created the Coronavirus in the city of Wuhan in China, where it first appeared.

The first confirmed case of the Coronavirus was found in India in January in the year 2020.

Protecting ourselves against the coronavirus is essential by covering our mouths and noses when we cough or sneeze to prevent the infection from spreading.

We must constantly wash our hands with antibacterial soap and face masks to protect ourselves.

To ensure our safety, the government has ordered the whole nation's closure to halt the virus's spread.

The Coronavirus forced all our classes to be taken online, as schools and institutions were shut down.

Due to the coronavirus, everyone was instructed to stay indoors throughout the lockdown.

During this period, I spent a lot of time playing games with family members.

Even though the cases of COVID-19 are a lot less now, we should still take precautions.

Short 2-Minute Speech on Covid 19 for Students

The coronavirus, also known as Covid - 19 , causes a severe illness. Those who are exposed to it become sick in their lungs. A brand-new virus is having a devastating effect throughout the globe. It's being passed from person to person via social interaction.

The first instance of Covid - 19 was discovered in December 2019 in Wuhan, China . The World Health Organization proclaimed the covid - 19 pandemic in March 2020. It has now reached every country in the globe. Droplets produced by an infected person's cough or sneeze might infect those nearby.

The severity of Covid-19 symptoms varies widely. Symptoms aren't always present. The typical symptoms are high temperatures, a dry cough, and difficulty breathing. Covid - 19 individuals also exhibit other symptoms such as weakness, a sore throat, muscular soreness, and a diminished sense of smell and taste.

Vaccination has been produced by many countries but the effectiveness of them is different for every individual. The only treatment then is to avoid contracting in the first place. We can accomplish that by following these protocols—

Put on a mask to hide your face. Use soap and hand sanitiser often to keep germs at bay.

Keep a distance of 5 to 6 feet at all times.

Never put your fingers in your mouth or nose.

Long 2-Minute Speech on Covid 19 for Students

As students, it's important for us to understand the gravity of the situation regarding the Covid-19 pandemic and the impact it has on our communities and the world at large. In this speech, I will discuss the real-world examples of the effects of the pandemic and its impact on various aspects of our lives.

Impact on Economy | The Covid-19 pandemic has had a significant impact on the global economy. We have seen how businesses have been forced to close their doors, leading to widespread job loss and economic hardship. Many individuals and families have been struggling to make ends meet, and this has led to a rise in poverty and inequality.

Impact on Healthcare Systems | The pandemic has also put a strain on healthcare systems around the world. Hospitals have been overwhelmed with patients, and healthcare workers have been stretched to their limits. This has highlighted the importance of investing in healthcare systems and ensuring that they are prepared for future crises.

Impact on Education | The pandemic has also affected the education system, with schools and universities being closed around the world. This has led to a shift towards online learning and the use of technology to continue education remotely. However, it has also highlighted the digital divide, with many students from low-income backgrounds facing difficulties in accessing online learning.

Impact on Mental Health | The pandemic has not only affected our physical health but also our mental health. We have seen how the isolation and uncertainty caused by the pandemic have led to an increase in stress, anxiety, and depression. It's important that we take care of our mental health and support each other during this difficult time.

Real-life Story of a Student

John is a high school student who was determined to succeed despite the struggles brought on by the Covid-19 pandemic.

John's school closed down in the early days of the pandemic, and he quickly found himself struggling to adjust to online learning. Without the structure and support of in-person classes, John found it difficult to stay focused and motivated. He also faced challenges at home, as his parents were both essential workers and were often not available to help him with his schoolwork.

Despite these struggles, John refused to let the pandemic defeat him. He made a schedule for himself, to stay on top of his assignments and set goals for himself. He also reached out to his teachers for additional support, and they were more than happy to help.

John also found ways to stay connected with his classmates and friends, even though they were physically apart. They formed a study group and would meet regularly over Zoom to discuss their assignments and provide each other with support.

Thanks to his hard work and determination, John was able to maintain good grades and even improved in some subjects. He graduated high school on time, and was even accepted into his first-choice college.

John's story is a testament to the resilience and determination of students everywhere. Despite the challenges brought on by the pandemic, he was able to succeed and achieve his goals. He shows us that with hard work, determination, and support, we can overcome even the toughest of obstacles.

Explore Career Options (By Industry)

Construction
Entertainment
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Information Technology

Bio Medical Engineer

The field of biomedical engineering opens up a universe of expert chances. An Individual in the biomedical engineering career path work in the field of engineering as well as medicine, in order to find out solutions to common problems of the two fields. The biomedical engineering job opportunities are to collaborate with doctors and researchers to develop medical systems, equipment, or devices that can solve clinical problems. Here we will be discussing jobs after biomedical engineering, how to get a job in biomedical engineering, biomedical engineering scope, and salary.

Data Administrator

Database professionals use software to store and organise data such as financial information, and customer shipping records. Individuals who opt for a career as data administrators ensure that data is available for users and secured from unauthorised sales. DB administrators may work in various types of industries. It may involve computer systems design, service firms, insurance companies, banks and hospitals.

Ethical Hacker

A career as ethical hacker involves various challenges and provides lucrative opportunities in the digital era where every giant business and startup owns its cyberspace on the world wide web. Individuals in the ethical hacker career path try to find the vulnerabilities in the cyber system to get its authority. If he or she succeeds in it then he or she gets its illegal authority. Individuals in the ethical hacker career path then steal information or delete the file that could affect the business, functioning, or services of the organization.

Data Analyst

The invention of the database has given fresh breath to the people involved in the data analytics career path. Analysis refers to splitting up a whole into its individual components for individual analysis. Data analysis is a method through which raw data are processed and transformed into information that would be beneficial for user strategic thinking.

Data are collected and examined to respond to questions, evaluate hypotheses or contradict theories. It is a tool for analyzing, transforming, modeling, and arranging data with useful knowledge, to assist in decision-making and methods, encompassing various strategies, and is used in different fields of business, research, and social science.

Geothermal Engineer

Individuals who opt for a career as geothermal engineers are the professionals involved in the processing of geothermal energy. The responsibilities of geothermal engineers may vary depending on the workplace location. Those who work in fields design facilities to process and distribute geothermal energy. They oversee the functioning of machinery used in the field.

Remote Sensing Technician

Individuals who opt for a career as a remote sensing technician possess unique personalities. Remote sensing analysts seem to be rational human beings, they are strong, independent, persistent, sincere, realistic and resourceful. Some of them are analytical as well, which means they are intelligent, introspective and inquisitive.

Remote sensing scientists use remote sensing technology to support scientists in fields such as community planning, flight planning or the management of natural resources. Analysing data collected from aircraft, satellites or ground-based platforms using statistical analysis software, image analysis software or Geographic Information Systems (GIS) is a significant part of their work. Do you want to learn how to become remote sensing technician? There's no need to be concerned; we've devised a simple remote sensing technician career path for you. Scroll through the pages and read.

Geotechnical engineer

The role of geotechnical engineer starts with reviewing the projects needed to define the required material properties. The work responsibilities are followed by a site investigation of rock, soil, fault distribution and bedrock properties on and below an area of interest. The investigation is aimed to improve the ground engineering design and determine their engineering properties that include how they will interact with, on or in a proposed construction.

The role of geotechnical engineer in mining includes designing and determining the type of foundations, earthworks, and or pavement subgrades required for the intended man-made structures to be made. Geotechnical engineering jobs are involved in earthen and concrete dam construction projects, working under a range of normal and extreme loading conditions.

Cartographer

How fascinating it is to represent the whole world on just a piece of paper or a sphere. With the help of maps, we are able to represent the real world on a much smaller scale. Individuals who opt for a career as a cartographer are those who make maps. But, cartography is not just limited to maps, it is about a mixture of art , science , and technology. As a cartographer, not only you will create maps but use various geodetic surveys and remote sensing systems to measure, analyse, and create different maps for political, cultural or educational purposes.

Budget Analyst

Budget analysis, in a nutshell, entails thoroughly analyzing the details of a financial budget. The budget analysis aims to better understand and manage revenue. Budget analysts assist in the achievement of financial targets, the preservation of profitability, and the pursuit of long-term growth for a business. Budget analysts generally have a bachelor's degree in accounting, finance, economics, or a closely related field. Knowledge of Financial Management is of prime importance in this career.

Product Manager

A Product Manager is a professional responsible for product planning and marketing. He or she manages the product throughout the Product Life Cycle, gathering and prioritising the product. A product manager job description includes defining the product vision and working closely with team members of other departments to deliver winning products.

Underwriter

An underwriter is a person who assesses and evaluates the risk of insurance in his or her field like mortgage, loan, health policy, investment, and so on and so forth. The underwriter career path does involve risks as analysing the risks means finding out if there is a way for the insurance underwriter jobs to recover the money from its clients. If the risk turns out to be too much for the company then in the future it is an underwriter who will be held accountable for it. Therefore, one must carry out his or her job with a lot of attention and diligence.

Finance Executive

Operations manager.

Individuals in the operations manager jobs are responsible for ensuring the efficiency of each department to acquire its optimal goal. They plan the use of resources and distribution of materials. The operations manager's job description includes managing budgets, negotiating contracts, and performing administrative tasks.

Bank Probationary Officer (PO)

Investment director.

An investment director is a person who helps corporations and individuals manage their finances. They can help them develop a strategy to achieve their goals, including paying off debts and investing in the future. In addition, he or she can help individuals make informed decisions.

Welding Engineer

Welding Engineer Job Description: A Welding Engineer work involves managing welding projects and supervising welding teams. He or she is responsible for reviewing welding procedures, processes and documentation. A career as Welding Engineer involves conducting failure analyses and causes on welding issues.

Transportation Planner

A career as Transportation Planner requires technical application of science and technology in engineering, particularly the concepts, equipment and technologies involved in the production of products and services. In fields like land use, infrastructure review, ecological standards and street design, he or she considers issues of health, environment and performance. A Transportation Planner assigns resources for implementing and designing programmes. He or she is responsible for assessing needs, preparing plans and forecasts and compliance with regulations.

An expert in plumbing is aware of building regulations and safety standards and works to make sure these standards are upheld. Testing pipes for leakage using air pressure and other gauges, and also the ability to construct new pipe systems by cutting, fitting, measuring and threading pipes are some of the other more involved aspects of plumbing. Individuals in the plumber career path are self-employed or work for a small business employing less than ten people, though some might find working for larger entities or the government more desirable.

Construction Manager

Individuals who opt for a career as construction managers have a senior-level management role offered in construction firms. Responsibilities in the construction management career path are assigning tasks to workers, inspecting their work, and coordinating with other professionals including architects, subcontractors, and building services engineers.

Urban Planner

Urban Planning careers revolve around the idea of developing a plan to use the land optimally, without affecting the environment. Urban planning jobs are offered to those candidates who are skilled in making the right use of land to distribute the growing population, to create various communities.

Urban planning careers come with the opportunity to make changes to the existing cities and towns. They identify various community needs and make short and long-term plans accordingly.

Highway Engineer

Highway Engineer Job Description: A Highway Engineer is a civil engineer who specialises in planning and building thousands of miles of roads that support connectivity and allow transportation across the country. He or she ensures that traffic management schemes are effectively planned concerning economic sustainability and successful implementation.

Environmental Engineer

Individuals who opt for a career as an environmental engineer are construction professionals who utilise the skills and knowledge of biology, soil science, chemistry and the concept of engineering to design and develop projects that serve as solutions to various environmental problems.

Naval Architect

A Naval Architect is a professional who designs, produces and repairs safe and sea-worthy surfaces or underwater structures. A Naval Architect stays involved in creating and designing ships, ferries, submarines and yachts with implementation of various principles such as gravity, ideal hull form, buoyancy and stability.

Orthotist and Prosthetist

Orthotists and Prosthetists are professionals who provide aid to patients with disabilities. They fix them to artificial limbs (prosthetics) and help them to regain stability. There are times when people lose their limbs in an accident. In some other occasions, they are born without a limb or orthopaedic impairment. Orthotists and prosthetists play a crucial role in their lives with fixing them to assistive devices and provide mobility.

Veterinary Doctor

Pathologist.

A career in pathology in India is filled with several responsibilities as it is a medical branch and affects human lives. The demand for pathologists has been increasing over the past few years as people are getting more aware of different diseases. Not only that, but an increase in population and lifestyle changes have also contributed to the increase in a pathologist’s demand. The pathology careers provide an extremely huge number of opportunities and if you want to be a part of the medical field you can consider being a pathologist. If you want to know more about a career in pathology in India then continue reading this article.

Speech Therapist

Gynaecologist.

Gynaecology can be defined as the study of the female body. The job outlook for gynaecology is excellent since there is evergreen demand for one because of their responsibility of dealing with not only women’s health but also fertility and pregnancy issues. Although most women prefer to have a women obstetrician gynaecologist as their doctor, men also explore a career as a gynaecologist and there are ample amounts of male doctors in the field who are gynaecologists and aid women during delivery and childbirth.

An oncologist is a specialised doctor responsible for providing medical care to patients diagnosed with cancer. He or she uses several therapies to control the cancer and its effect on the human body such as chemotherapy, immunotherapy, radiation therapy and biopsy. An oncologist designs a treatment plan based on a pathology report after diagnosing the type of cancer and where it is spreading inside the body.

Audiologist

The audiologist career involves audiology professionals who are responsible to treat hearing loss and proactively preventing the relevant damage. Individuals who opt for a career as an audiologist use various testing strategies with the aim to determine if someone has a normal sensitivity to sounds or not. After the identification of hearing loss, a hearing doctor is required to determine which sections of the hearing are affected, to what extent they are affected, and where the wound causing the hearing loss is found. As soon as the hearing loss is identified, the patients are provided with recommendations for interventions and rehabilitation such as hearing aids, cochlear implants, and appropriate medical referrals. While audiology is a branch of science that studies and researches hearing, balance, and related disorders.

Hospital Administrator

The hospital Administrator is in charge of organising and supervising the daily operations of medical services and facilities. This organising includes managing of organisation’s staff and its members in service, budgets, service reports, departmental reporting and taking reminders of patient care and services.

For an individual who opts for a career as an actor, the primary responsibility is to completely speak to the character he or she is playing and to persuade the crowd that the character is genuine by connecting with them and bringing them into the story. This applies to significant roles and littler parts, as all roles join to make an effective creation. Here in this article, we will discuss how to become an actor in India, actor exams, actor salary in India, and actor jobs.

Individuals who opt for a career as acrobats create and direct original routines for themselves, in addition to developing interpretations of existing routines. The work of circus acrobats can be seen in a variety of performance settings, including circus, reality shows, sports events like the Olympics, movies and commercials. Individuals who opt for a career as acrobats must be prepared to face rejections and intermittent periods of work. The creativity of acrobats may extend to other aspects of the performance. For example, acrobats in the circus may work with gym trainers, celebrities or collaborate with other professionals to enhance such performance elements as costume and or maybe at the teaching end of the career.

Video Game Designer

Career as a video game designer is filled with excitement as well as responsibilities. A video game designer is someone who is involved in the process of creating a game from day one. He or she is responsible for fulfilling duties like designing the character of the game, the several levels involved, plot, art and similar other elements. Individuals who opt for a career as a video game designer may also write the codes for the game using different programming languages.

Depending on the video game designer job description and experience they may also have to lead a team and do the early testing of the game in order to suggest changes and find loopholes.

Radio Jockey

Radio Jockey is an exciting, promising career and a great challenge for music lovers. If you are really interested in a career as radio jockey, then it is very important for an RJ to have an automatic, fun, and friendly personality. If you want to get a job done in this field, a strong command of the language and a good voice are always good things. Apart from this, in order to be a good radio jockey, you will also listen to good radio jockeys so that you can understand their style and later make your own by practicing.

A career as radio jockey has a lot to offer to deserving candidates. If you want to know more about a career as radio jockey, and how to become a radio jockey then continue reading the article.

Choreographer

The word “choreography" actually comes from Greek words that mean “dance writing." Individuals who opt for a career as a choreographer create and direct original dances, in addition to developing interpretations of existing dances. A Choreographer dances and utilises his or her creativity in other aspects of dance performance. For example, he or she may work with the music director to select music or collaborate with other famous choreographers to enhance such performance elements as lighting, costume and set design.

Videographer

Multimedia specialist.

A multimedia specialist is a media professional who creates, audio, videos, graphic image files, computer animations for multimedia applications. He or she is responsible for planning, producing, and maintaining websites and applications.

Social Media Manager

A career as social media manager involves implementing the company’s or brand’s marketing plan across all social media channels. Social media managers help in building or improving a brand’s or a company’s website traffic, build brand awareness, create and implement marketing and brand strategy. Social media managers are key to important social communication as well.

Copy Writer

In a career as a copywriter, one has to consult with the client and understand the brief well. A career as a copywriter has a lot to offer to deserving candidates. Several new mediums of advertising are opening therefore making it a lucrative career choice. Students can pursue various copywriter courses such as Journalism , Advertising , Marketing Management . Here, we have discussed how to become a freelance copywriter, copywriter career path, how to become a copywriter in India, and copywriting career outlook.

Careers in journalism are filled with excitement as well as responsibilities. One cannot afford to miss out on the details. As it is the small details that provide insights into a story. Depending on those insights a journalist goes about writing a news article. A journalism career can be stressful at times but if you are someone who is passionate about it then it is the right choice for you. If you want to know more about the media field and journalist career then continue reading this article.

For publishing books, newspapers, magazines and digital material, editorial and commercial strategies are set by publishers. Individuals in publishing career paths make choices about the markets their businesses will reach and the type of content that their audience will be served. Individuals in book publisher careers collaborate with editorial staff, designers, authors, and freelance contributors who develop and manage the creation of content.

In a career as a vlogger, one generally works for himself or herself. However, once an individual has gained viewership there are several brands and companies that approach them for paid collaboration. It is one of those fields where an individual can earn well while following his or her passion.

Ever since internet costs got reduced the viewership for these types of content has increased on a large scale. Therefore, a career as a vlogger has a lot to offer. If you want to know more about the Vlogger eligibility, roles and responsibilities then continue reading the article.

Individuals in the editor career path is an unsung hero of the news industry who polishes the language of the news stories provided by stringers, reporters, copywriters and content writers and also news agencies. Individuals who opt for a career as an editor make it more persuasive, concise and clear for readers. In this article, we will discuss the details of the editor's career path such as how to become an editor in India, editor salary in India and editor skills and qualities.

Linguistic meaning is related to language or Linguistics which is the study of languages. A career as a linguistic meaning, a profession that is based on the scientific study of language, and it's a very broad field with many specialities. Famous linguists work in academia, researching and teaching different areas of language, such as phonetics (sounds), syntax (word order) and semantics (meaning).

Other researchers focus on specialities like computational linguistics, which seeks to better match human and computer language capacities, or applied linguistics, which is concerned with improving language education. Still, others work as language experts for the government, advertising companies, dictionary publishers and various other private enterprises. Some might work from home as freelance linguists. Philologist, phonologist, and dialectician are some of Linguist synonym. Linguists can study French , German , Italian .

Public Relation Executive

Travel journalist.

The career of a travel journalist is full of passion, excitement and responsibility. Journalism as a career could be challenging at times, but if you're someone who has been genuinely enthusiastic about all this, then it is the best decision for you. Travel journalism jobs are all about insightful, artfully written, informative narratives designed to cover the travel industry. Travel Journalist is someone who explores, gathers and presents information as a news article.

Quality Controller

A quality controller plays a crucial role in an organisation. He or she is responsible for performing quality checks on manufactured products. He or she identifies the defects in a product and rejects the product.

A quality controller records detailed information about products with defects and sends it to the supervisor or plant manager to take necessary actions to improve the production process.

Production Manager

Merchandiser.

A QA Lead is in charge of the QA Team. The role of QA Lead comes with the responsibility of assessing services and products in order to determine that he or she meets the quality standards. He or she develops, implements and manages test plans.

Metallurgical Engineer

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Keynote speech to the world health summit 2021 – 24 october 2021, unicef executive director henrietta fore.

Excellencies, colleagues, friends … it is a pleasure to be with you here today for the World Health Summit.

I am honoured and inspired by the spirit of collaboration among experts in science, politics, business, government and civil society represented at this Summit.

On behalf of UNICEF, I am grateful for the opportunity to speak with you now at this critical moment in the global response to the COVID-19 pandemic – a pandemic which continues to impact so many aspects of our lives. COVID-19 has hobbled economies, strained societies and undermined the prospects of the next generation. While children are not at greatest direct risk from the virus itself, they continue to suffer disproportionately from its socioeconomic consequences. Almost two years into the pandemic, a generation of children are enduring prolonged school closures and ongoing disruptions to health, protection and education services.

That is why today I am here to discuss the health threats facing the 2.2 billion children around the world who UNICEF serves, and the opportunity we have to protect them.

Driven by new variants of concern, the virus continues to spread. While successful vaccination campaigns in the wealthy world have driven down rates of hospitalization and death, millions in low income countries await their first dose, and fragile health systems – on which children rely – are in jeopardy.

Yet the gap between those who have been offered vaccination against COVID-19 and those who have not is widening. While some countries have protected most of their populations, in others, less than 3 per cent of the population have had their first dose. Those going without vaccines include doctors, midwives, nurses, community health workers, teachers and social workers – the very people that children, mothers and families rely upon for the most essential services.

This is unacceptable. As a community of global health leaders, we have a choice. We can choose to act to reach more people with vaccines. This will keep people safe AND help to sustain critical services and systems for children.

Today, almost 7 billion doses of COVID-19 vaccine have been administered, less than a year since the first vaccine was approved. And we are now on track to produce enough vaccines to protect the majority of people around the world before the end of next year.

But will we protect everyone?

Will we send lifesaving, health-system-saving COVID-19 vaccines to the world’s doctors, nurses, and most at-risk populations?

Will donors continue to fund ACT-A and COVAX sufficiently to procure and successfully deploy the tests, treatments and vaccines needed to end the pandemic? Or will the costs of in-country delivery fall on struggling economies so that they are forced to cut other lifesaving health programmes such as routine childhood vaccinations?

Will we stand by as the lowest-income countries, with the most fragile health systems, carry on unprotected – risking high death rates due to shortages of tests, treatments and vaccines? Or will we invest so that community health systems everywhere can withstand further waves of the virus, and bounce back from future shocks?

Will we allow new variants of the virus to flourish in countries with low vaccination rates? Or, will we reap the benefits of global cooperation to defeat this global problem, together?

The world has learned that financing for prevention, preparedness and response is insufficient and not adequately coordinated. And that is a vital lesson.

But even more fundamentally, we have learned that the underlying strength of the health sector in general is a critical factor in a country’s ability to weather a storm like COVID-19.

After all, what good are vaccines if there is no functioning public health system to deliver them?

How do we hope to contain outbreaks if there are not enough trained and paid healthcare workers?

This pandemic has been crippling for high income countries where average spending on healthcare per capita exceeds $5,000. So, it is hardly surprising that it is causing critical strain in lower-income countries where the average per capita expenditure on healthcare each year is less than $100.

The past 22 months have shown us that even as we battle immediate threats such as a pandemic, we must also ensure continuous access to essential health services. If we do not, there will be an indirect increase in morbidity and mortality.

As COVID-19 took hold of the world, healthcare workers serving pregnant mothers, babies and children faced unthinkable choices. As COVID patients gasped for breath, desperate for oxygen, mothers and babies needed it too. As wards filled up with virus victims, staff were not free to help the very young. As health budgets were stretched to the breaking point, routine healthcare began to go by the wayside.

These are some of the reasons why more than twice as many women and children have lost their lives for every COVID-19 death in many low and middle-income countries. Estimates from the Lancet suggest up to nearly 114,000 additional women and children died during this period.

I greatly fear that the pandemic’s impact on children’s health is only starting to be seen.

While the pandemic has underscored that vaccination is one of the most cost-effective public health interventions, we have already seen backsliding in routine immunization. In 2020, over 23 million children missed out on essential vaccines – an increase of nearly 4 million from 2019, with decades of progress tragically eroded.

Of these 23 million, 17 million of them did not receive any vaccines at all. These are the so-called zero-dose children, most of whom live in communities with multiple deprivations.    

Here are some of the most urgent choices we could make to address these problems:

Governments can share COVID-19 doses with COVAX as a matter of absolute urgency and resist the temptation to stockpile supplies more than necessary.

Governments can also honour their commitments to equitable access and make space for COVAX and other parts of ACT-A at the front of the supply queue for tests, treatments, and vaccines as they roll off production lines.

Manufacturers can be more transparent about their production schedules and make greater efforts to facilitate and accelerate equitable access to products. This will help to ensure that COVAX and ACT-A get supplies faster.

Governments, development banks, business and philanthropy can target strategic, sustainable investments in building robust and resilient primary healthcare services – embedded in each and every community.

We can and we must choose a path ahead that is equitable, sustainable and rooted in the principle that every human being, young and old, rich and poor, has the right to good health.

And there is good reason to believe that now is the time to set ourselves upon that path.

A look back at history shows us that global threats and crises that challenge multiple interests and equities have a way of pulling together diverse partners to solve shared problems. Indeed, it is out of some of the most tragic crises that the world has found some of the best solutions.

I believe now is such a time. We have a historic opportunity to both end the COVID-19 pandemic and set out on the road towards eradicating preventable diseases, ending avoidable maternal, newborn and child deaths, and building a strong foundation for community health that will serve this generation and the next.

We can and we must seize this moment together.

Thank you.

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Reversing the Inequality Pandemic: Speech by World Bank Group President David Malpass

World Bank Group President David Malpass

Speech at Frankfurt School of Finance and Management

You can watch the replay of the event here

Introduction

Thank you, Jens. And thanks to Frankfurt School and the Bundesbank for hosting me virtually. I look forward to engaging with you and taking questions from students, who will be future business leaders in a post-COVID world. I’m here to set the stage ahead of the IMF and World Bank Group’s Annual Meetings, which will focus primarily on COVID and debt, and will also engage partners in urgent discussions on human capital, climate change, and digital development.

Before I begin, I would be remiss not to mention that this is the first time that the positioning speech for the World Bank Group Annual Meetings is being held in continental Europe. Germany is a major anchor for the World Bank Group and the rest of Europe; it is IBRD’s fourth largest shareholder, and the fourth largest contributor to IDA, and Chancellor Merkel has always been a strong supporter of World Bank Group priorities, including tackling debt and COVID, as well as action on global public goods. I understand that these priorities are also the focus of Germany’s EU Presidency, which runs through the end of 2020.

As Jens said, the COVID-19 pandemic is a crisis like no other. Its toll has been massive and people in the poorest countries are likely to suffer the most and the longest. The pandemic has taken lives and disrupted livelihoods in every corner of the globe. It has knocked more economies into simultaneous recession than at any time since 1870. And it could lead to the first wave of a lost decade burdened by weak growth, a collapse in many health and education systems, and excessive debt.

The pandemic has already changed our world decisively and forced upon the world a painful transformation. It has changed everything : the way we work, the extent to which we travel, and the manner in which we communicate, teach, and learn. It has rapidly elevated some industries—especially the technology sector—while pushing others toward obsolescence.

Our approach has been comprehensive—focused on saving lives, protecting the poor and vulnerable, ensuring sustainable business growth, and rebuilding in better ways. Today, I’m going to focus on four urgent aspects of this work: first, the need to redouble efforts to alleviate poverty and inequality ; second, the associated loss of human capital and what must be done to restore it; third, the urgent need to help the poorest countries make their government debt more transparent and permanently reduce their debt burdens, two necessary steps to attract effective investment; and finally, how we can cooperate to facilitate the changes needed for an inclusive and resilient recovery .

Topic 1: Poverty and Inequality

First, on poverty and inequality, COVID-19 has dealt an unprecedented setback to the worldwide effort to end extreme poverty, raise median incomes and create shared prosperity.

Jens has referred to the World Bank’s new poverty projections, which suggest that by 2021 an additional 110 to 150 million people will have fallen into extreme poverty, living on less than $1.90 per day. This means that the pandemic and global recession may push over 1.4% of the world’s population into extreme poverty.

The current crisis is a sharp contrast from the recession of 2008, which focused much of its damage on financial assets and hit advanced economies harder than developing countries. This time, the economic downturn is broader, much deeper, and has hit informal sector workers and the poor, especially women and children, harder than those with higher incomes or assets.

One reason for the differential impact is the advanced economies’ sweeping expansion of government spending programs. Rich countries have had the resources to protect their citizens to an extent many developing countries have not. Another is central bank asset purchases. The scale of such purchases is unprecedented and has successfully propped up global financial markets. This benefits the well-to-do and those with guaranteed pensions, especially in the rich world, but it is not clear, either in textbook theory or in practice, how 0% interest rates and ever-expanding government asset and liability balances will translate into new jobs, profitable small businesses, or rising median income—key steps in reversing inequality.

Poorer economies have fewer macro-economic tools and stabilizers and suffer from weaker health care systems and social safety nets. For them, there are no fast ways to reverse the sudden reduction in their sales to consumers in advanced economies or the almost overnight collapse in tourism and remittances from family members working abroad. It’s clear that sustainable recoveries will require growth that benefits all people—and not just those in positions of power. In an interconnected world, where people are more informed than ever before, this pandemic of inequality—with rising poverty and declining median incomes—will increasingly be a threat to the maintenance of social order and political stability, and even to the defense of democracy.

Topic 2: Human Capital

Second, on human capital, developing countries were making significant progress before COVID-19—and, notably, starting to close gender gaps. Human capital is what drives sustainable economic growth and poverty reduction. It consists of the knowledge, skills, and quality of health that people gain over their lives. It is associated with higher earnings for people, higher income for countries, and stronger cohesion in societies.

Since the outbreak, however, more than 1.6 billion children in developing countries have been out of school because of COVID-19, implying a potential loss of as much as $10 trillion in lifetime earnings for these students. Gender-based violence is on the rise, and child mortality is also likely to increase in coming years: our early estimates suggest a potential increase of up to 45% in child mortality because of health-service shortfalls and reductions in access to food.

These setbacks imply a long-term hit to productivity, income growth and social cohesion—which is why we’re doing everything we can to bolster health and education in developing countries. In the area of health, the World Bank Group worked with our Board in March to establish a fast-track COVID response that has delivered emergency support to 111 countries so far. Most projects are now in advanced stages of disbursement for the purchase of COVID-related health supplies, such as masks and emergency room equipment.

Our goal was to take broad, fast action early and to provide large net positive flows to the world’s poorest countries. We are making good progress toward our announced 15-month target of $160 billion in surge financing, much of it to the poorest countries and to private sectors for trade finance and working capital. Over $50 billion of that support takes the form of grants or low-rate, long-maturity loans, providing key resources to maintain or expand health care systems and social safety nets. Both are likely to play a key near-term role in survival and health for millions of families.

We are also taking action to help developing countries with COVID vaccines and therapeutics. I announced last week that, by extending and expanding our fast-track approach to address the COVID emergency, we plan to make available up to $12 billion to countries for the purchase and deployment of COVID-19 vaccines once the vaccines have been approved by multiple stringent regulatory agencies around the world. This additional financing will be to low- and middle-income developing countries that don’t have adequate access and will help them alter the course of the pandemic for their people. The approach draws on the World Bank’s significant expertise in supporting public health and vaccination programs and will signal to markets that developing countries will have multiple ways to purchase approved vaccines and will have significant purchasing power.

Our private sector arm—the International Finance Corporation, or IFC—is also investing heavily in vaccine manufacturers through its $4 billion Global Health Platform. The aim is to encourage ramped-up production of COVID-19 vaccines and therapeutics in advanced and developing economies alike—and to ensure that emerging markets gain access to available doses. IFC is also working with the vaccine partnership—CEPI—to map COVID-19 vaccine manufacturing capacity, focusing especially on potential bottlenecks.

To mitigate the impact of the pandemic on education, the Bank is working to help countries reopen primary and secondary schools safely and quickly. Out of school, children tend to backslide in their educational skills; and for children in the poorest countries, physical attendance in school is an important source of food and security, not just the reading and math that provide a critical ladder out of poverty. The Bank is working in 65 countries to implement remote-learning strategies, combining online resources with radio, TV, and social networks, and printed materials for the most vulnerable. We are also partnering with UNICEF and UNESCO on school-reopening frameworks.

In Nigeria, for example, we provided $500 million in new funding for the Adolescent Girls Initiative for Learning and Empowerment (AGILE), which aims to improve secondary education opportunities among girls. The project is expected to benefit more than 6 million girls, using TV, radio, and remote-learning tools.

Topic 3: Debt Burdens

My third urgent topic is debt. A combination of factors has led to a wave of excessive debt in countries where there is no margin for error. Global financial markets are dominated by low interest rates, creating a reach-for-yield fervor that invites excess. This is reinforced by an imbalance in the global debt system that puts sovereign debt in a unique category that favors creditors over the people in the borrowing country—there’s not a sovereign bankruptcy process that allows for partial payment and reduction of claims. As a result, people, even the world’s poorest and most destitute, are required to pay their government’s debts as long as creditors pursue claims—even so-called “vulture” creditors who acquire the distressed claims on secondary markets, exploit litigation, penalty interest clauses and court judgments to ratchet up the value of the claims, and use attachment of assets and payments to enforce debt service. In the worst cases, it’s the modern equivalent of debtor’s prison.

Further, the political incentive and opportunity for government officials to borrow heavily has increased. Their careers benefit from the availability of long-maturity debt because the repayment cycle is often well after the political cycle. This undermines accountability for debt, making transparency much more important than in the past.

An added factor in the current wave of debt is the rapid growth of new official lenders, especially several of China’s well-capitalized creditors. They’ve expanded their portfolios dramatically and are not fully participating in the debt rescheduling processes that were developed to soften previous waves of debt.

To take a first step toward debt relief for the poorest countries, at the World Bank’s Spring Meetings in March, I, along with Kristalina Georgieva of the IMF, proposed a moratorium on debt payments by the poorest countries. It was partly a response to COVID and the need for countries to have fiscal space, and also a recognition that a debt crisis was underway for the poorest countries. With endorsement by the G20, G7 and Paris Club, the Debt Service Suspension Initiative, or DSSI, took effect on May 1. It enabled a fast and coordinated response to provide additional fiscal space for the poorest countries in the world. As of mid-September, 43 countries were benefiting from an estimated $5 billion in debt-service suspension from official bilateral creditors, complementing the scaled-up emergency financing provided by the World Bank and IMF. The DSSI has also enabled us to make significant progress on debt transparency, which will help borrowing countries and their creditors make more informed borrowing and investment decisions. This year’s edition of the World Bank’s International Debt Statistics, to be released next Monday, October 12, will provide more detailed and more disaggregated data on sovereign debt than ever before in its nearly 70-year history.

Many more steps are needed on debt relief. One avenue is to broaden and extend the current debt initiative so that there is time to work out a more permanent solution. The World Bank and the IMF have called on the G20 to extend the DSSI’s relief through the end of 2021, and we are highlighting the need for G20 governments to urge the participation of all their private and bilateral public sector creditors in the DSSI. Private creditors and non-participating bilateral creditors should not be allowed to free-ride on the debt relief of others, and at the expense of the world’s poor.

Debt service suspension is an important stopgap, but it is not enough. First, too many of the creditors are not participating, leaving the debt relief too shallow to meet the fiscal needs of the inequality pandemic around us. Second, debt payments are simply being deferred, not reduced. It doesn’t produce light at the end of the debt tunnel. This is particularly apparent in today’s low-for-long financing environment. The normal time value of money simply isn’t working, so the creditors’ offer of a deferral of payments with a compounding of interest often means that the burden of debt goes up with time, not down. The historical use of net present value equations in debt restructurings has to be scrutinized for fairness to the people in the debtor countries.

The risk is that it will take years or decades for the poorest countries to convince creditors to reduce their debt burdens enough to help restart growth and investment. Given the depth of the pandemic, I believe we need to move with urgency to provide a meaningful reduction in the stock of debt for countries in debt distress. Under the current system, however, each country, no matter how poor, may have to fight it out with each creditor. Creditors are usually better financed with the highest paid lawyers representing them, often in U.S. and UK courts that make debt restructurings difficult. It is surely possible that these countries—two of the biggest contributors to development—can do more to reconcile their public policies toward the poorest countries and their laws protecting the rights of creditors to demand repayments from these countries.

Several steps are needed. First, as I mentioned, full participation in the moratorium by all official bilateral and commercial creditors, to buy time. Second, full transparency of the terms of the existing and new debt and debt-like commitments of the governments of the poorest countries. Both creditors and debtors should embrace this transparency, but neither has done enough in this regard. Third, using this fuller transparency, we need a careful analysis of a country’s long-term debt sustainability to identify sovereign debt levels that would be sustainable and consistent with growth and poverty reduction. This degree of transparency and analysis would also be strongly beneficial for the public commitments of developed countries, such as outlay projections for public pension funds. Fourth, we need new tools to push forward with the reduction of the stock of debt for the poorest countries. The World Bank and IMF are proposing to the Development Committee a joint action plan by the end of 2020 for debt reduction for IDA countries in unsustainable debt situations.

Looking more broadly, since the arrival of COVID-19, the challenge of high debt burdens has expanded to endanger the solvency of many businesses. The Bank for International Settlements has estimated that 50% of businesses do not have enough cash to pay their debt-servicing costs over the coming year.

Rising corporate debt distress has the potential to put otherwise viable firms out of business, exacerbating job losses, depressing entrepreneurship, and slowing growth prospects well into the future. The World Bank and IFC are both working with our client countries to address this issue, helping them bolster and improve insolvency frameworks while shoring up the working capital of systemically important businesses.

Topic 4: Fostering an Inclusive and Resilient Recovery

My fourth topic is on fostering an inclusive and resilient recovery. COVID-19 has demonstrated—with deadly effect—that national borders offer little protection against some calamities. It has underscored the deep connections between economic systems, human health, and global well-being. It has concentrated our minds on building systems that will better protect all countries the next time, especially our poorest and most vulnerable citizens.

It is critical that countries work toward their climate and environmental goals. A high priority for the world is to lower the carbon emissions from electricity generation, meaning the termination of new coal- and oil-dependent power generation projects and the wind-down of existing high-carbon generators. Many of the largest emitters—in the developing world but, I must say, also in the developed world—are still not making sufficient progress in this area.

Amid the pandemic, the World Bank Group has remained the largest multilateral financier of climate action. Over the last five years, we have provided $83 billion in climate-related investments. Our work has helped 120 million people in over 50 countries gain access to weather data and early-warning systems crucial to saving lives in disasters. We have added a total of 34 gigawatts of renewable energy into grids to help communities, businesses and economies thrive. I’m happy to say that, in Fiscal Year 2020, my first full year as President, the World Bank Group made more climate-related investments than at any time in its history.

We intend to step up that work over the next five years. We are helping countries put an economic value on biodiversity—including forests, land, and water resources—so they can better manage these natural assets. We are helping them assess how climate risks affect women and others who are already vulnerable.

We are also working with governments to eliminate or redirect environmentally harmful fuel subsidies and to reduce trade barriers for food and medical supplies. Global progress in this area, however, has remained slow. COVID-19 spending packages could have a decisive effect on promoting more low-carbon energy sources and facilitating a stronger, more resilient recovery.

And on the economy itself, recognizing the severity of the downturn and the likely longevity, a key step in a sustainable recovery will be for economies and people to allow change and embrace it. Countries will need to allow capital, labor, skills, and innovation to shift to a different, post-COVID business environment. This puts a premium on workers and businesses using their skills and innovations in new ways in a commercial environment that is likely to rely more on electronic connections than travel and handshakes.

To speed recovery, countries will need to find a better balance between, on the one hand, maintaining core public and private sector businesses and, on the other, recognizing that many businesses won’t survive the downturn. In many cases, support efforts will be more effective if they aid families rather than propping up pre-COVID business structures.

The business environment needs change and improvement to build a faster, more sustainable recovery. A key part of this process of change is for the ownership and repurposing of distressed assets to be resolved as quickly as possible. This will likely entail a combination of faster bankruptcy proceedings, new legal avenues for settling small claims, and other out-of-court alternatives such as arbitration. These are important building blocks for effective contracts and capital allocation, but only a few developing countries have them in place. The severity of the downturn makes the prompt streamlining and transparency of commercial law as vital for recovery as the availability of new debt and equity capital.

None of these steps will be enough, and the reality is that aid, even from the most generous donors, can’t make ends meet. Just to reverse COVID’s likely increase in extreme poverty in 2020 would require $70 billion per year ($2 per day times 100 million people). That’s well beyond the World Bank Group’s financial capacity or any of the development agencies. My view is that sustainable solutions can only come by embracing change—through innovation, new uses for existing assets, workers and job skills, a reset on excessive debt burdens, and governance systems that create a stable rule of law while also embracing change.

In conclusion, I raised the urgency of addressing poverty, inequality, human capital, debt reduction, climate change, and economic adaptability as elements in ensuring a resilient recovery. This once-in-a-century crisis has demonstrated why history doesn’t exactly repeat itself—because humankind does learn from its mistakes. The pandemic so far has not triggered the devastating side effects of earlier crashes—neither hyperinflation, nor deflation, nor widespread famine. Even though the loss of income and the inequality of the impact have been worse than in most past crises, the global economic response, so far, has been much bigger than we might have expected at the start of this crisis.

The development response will need to be extended and intensified, both in terms of the health emergency and the efforts to help countries find effective support systems and recovery plans. Greater cooperation will enable us to share knowledge and develop and apply effective solutions far more swiftly. It will enable innovators to develop a vaccine that beats the virus and restores people’s confidence in the future. Working through all channels, my hope—and my belief—is that we can shorten the downturn and build a strong foundation for a more durable model of prosperity—one that can lift all countries and all people.

Thank you very much.

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Remarks by Commissioner Stephen Hahn, M.D. — The COVID-19 Pandemic — Finding Solutions, Applying Lessons Learned - 06/01/2020

Speech | Virtual

Event Title Remarks by Commissioner Stephen Hahn, M.D. — The COVID-19 Pandemic — Finding Solutions, Applying Lessons Learned June 1, 2020

The COVID-19 Pandemic — Finding Solutions, Applying Lessons Learned

(Remarks as prepared for delivery. The text and video of this speech are slightly, though not substantively different from the version presented by Dr. Hahn on June 1 to the Alliance for a Stronger FDA, via audio broadcast only. Because of evolving scheduling challenges, it was not clear whether Dr. Hahn would be able to present the speech live and so it was recorded by video earlier. Ultimately, he did give the speech live to the Alliance, but only via an audio link. Given the minimal changes in the live version, we are posting the video version and the accompanying text.)

One of the most frustrating challenges each of us can face is the inability to control the events that affect our lives. Often, we are thrust into situations not of our own making. It’s no surprise that one of the most familiar adages concerns the best laid plans of mice and men going awry.

And yet, to borrow another often-used saying, necessity is the mother of invention. History teaches us that crises often lead to accelerated change and innovations and new discoveries.

This dynamic has been on my mind a great deal recently. It wasn’t too long ago – last December, to be exact -- that I had the distinction of being confirmed as the 24th Commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration.

This is the greatest honor of my life. I have long cherished the critical role the FDA plays in protecting and promoting the public health, and I’ve relied on the Agency’s expertise throughout my professional life.

So, I eagerly embraced my new responsibilities and the chance to make a real difference in public health. I was especially conscious that we live in a time of extraordinary scientific achievement, especially in oncology, with unprecedented opportunities to help make the lives of American patients and consumers healthier and safer.

I quickly immersed myself in the Agency’s broad and complex responsibilities, seizing every opportunity to learn about the FDA, both those areas with which I’d previously had minimum involvement, such as food policy, and those with which I had more familiarity, like cancer treatments and innovative clinical trial design.

I began to work with, and learn from, the agency’s extraordinary leadership team. I learned very quickly that the principles that have guided me throughout my life, such as my commitment to relying only on the best medical science and most rigorous data in support of advancing innovation and discovery, and my fundamental belief in promoting integrity and transparency in the scientific process, are the same principles that guide the FDA in both science and regulation.

So, I was in the midst of transitioning from being Chief Medical Executive at MD Anderson Cancer Center to being Commissioner of FDA when our entire world was turned upside down with the appearance of the novel COVID-19 coronavirus.

I certainly did not anticipate a public health emergency of this magnitude when I joined the agency. And I could not have imagined how significantly my new role would change and be shaped by this pandemic. I definitely could not have known that discussions about personal protective equipment (or PPE) or face masks or nasal swabs would be central to my work as Commissioner.

One thing was apparent: I would need to manage this evolving situation even as I was still learning about FDA.

From the very start I knew that even in a crisis situation – or perhaps especially because we are in a crisis situation – it is imperative that we maintain FDA’s high standards for evaluating products and making sure that the benefits outweigh potential harms.

To maintain our standard, I pledged to myself and emphasized to my new colleagues at FDA that our decisions would always be rooted in science. Having spent my entire career as a physician and scientist caring for patients with cancer, I’ve always valued highly a commitment to good data and sound science. I feel comfortable working with the scientists at FDA because I know they not only share that value, that commitment, but that they will tolerate nothing less. So, it was critical to me, as the pandemic escalated that this be reinforced as the guidepost for all of our decisions.

It may have been trial by fire, but I have the good fortune to work with an enormous number of talented individuals and teams who are helping guide us through this crisis. Every day they show extraordinary expertise, commitment, and resilience.

I also was able to call on many from outside the agency, including former FDA leaders as well as colleagues from the medical community.

What struck me was the uniformity of their advice. Those who formerly worked at FDA urged me to rely upon the FDA staff, many of whom have the experience to help manage a pandemic. My friends from outside the agency urged that we move quickly to make decisions, set direction and to be transparent about what we are doing. I have tried to follow all of this excellent advice.

Protecting the Food Supply

Since this crisis and the actions of the FDA have evolved so rapidly, let me summarize what we have done. I am confident that the FDA has measured up to this unprecedented challenge.

I want to start with the first word in the FDA’s name – food. Most of us take food safety for granted. But it takes a lot of hard work to maintain a safe food supply. This was true even before the COVID-19 pandemic but is especially challenging during an ongoing international crisis.

During the pandemic, through the collaboration of the FDA, the food industry and our federal and state partners, we have been able to maintain the safety of the nation’s food supply. Our Coordinated Outbreak Response and Evaluation team remained on the job, monitoring for signs of foodborne illness outbreaks and prepared to take action when needed.

And along with our federal partners, including CDC and USDA, we also have provided best practices for food workers, industry, and consumers on how to stay safe and keep food safe.

Diagnosing and Developing Treatments

On the medical side, we immediately committed to facilitating efforts to develop diagnostic tests, treatments and vaccines for the disease. We have helped facilitate increases in our national testing capacity, have helped ensure continued access to necessary medical products, and have sought to prevent the sale of fraudulent products.

If there’s one thing that’s been reaffirmed during this crisis, it’s the essential role of medical devices, including diagnostics, to countering this pandemic.

From the earliest days of our response, we worked to ensure that we had the essential medical devices, including personal protective equipment, to help treat those who are ill and to ensure that health care workers and others on the front line are properly protected.

To be sure, there were bumps along the road, but today we have an adequate supply of the devices that have been in unprecedented high demand such as PPE, ventilators, and others.

We’ve reviewed and issued emergency use authorizations for medical devices for COVID-19 at an incredibly fast pace.

And we’ve worked closely with many companies that don’t regularly make medical products but wanted to pitch in by making hand sanitizer, ventilators, or PPE.

There was a special focus on the development and availability of accurate and reliable COVID-19 tests. We need to know who has the disease and who has had it. This is essential if we are to understand this virus and return to a more normal lifestyle.

Since January, we’ve worked with hundreds of test developers, many of whom have submitted emergency use authorization requests to FDA for tests that detect the virus or antibodies to the virus.

As you have seen reported, early in the crisis we provided regulatory flexibility for developers with validated tests as outlined in our policies because public health needs dictated that we do as much testing as possible. But as the process has matured, we have helped increase the number of authorized tests, and we have adapted some of our policies to best serve the public need.

Today, if evidence arises that raises questions about a particular test’s reliability, we will take appropriate action to protect consumers from inaccurate tests. This is a dynamic process that is continually being informed by new data and evidence.

We’ve used a similar dynamic process in the search for therapeutic treatments and vaccines.

We are working closely with partners throughout the government and academia, and with drug and vaccine developers to explore, expedite, and incentivize the development of these products.

More than 90 drugs are being studied, and FDA is actively working with numerous vaccine sponsors, including three sponsors who have announced they have vaccine candidates that are now in clinical trials in the U.S. More than 144 clinical trials have been initiated for therapeutic agents, with hundreds more in the pipeline. We don’t have a cure or vaccine yet, but we’re on our way, at unprecedented speed.

Ultimately, of course, the way we’ll eventually defeat this virus is with a vaccine. FDA is working closely to provide technical assistance to federal partners, vaccine developers, researchers, manufacturers, and experts across the globe and exploring all possible options to advance the most efficient and timely development of vaccines, while at the same time maintaining regulatory independence.

Communicating and Educating

There is much more to do going forward, and that includes research, exploration and discovery, and communicating what we know.

As the country starts to reopen, it’s essential that the public understands what they need to do to continue to protect themselves. There has been a proliferation of information, and misinformation, on the internet and in other sources. Consumers need to understand that this virus is still with us and that we, as individuals and communities working together, need to take steps to continue to contain its spread.

The FDA has an important part to play in communicating public information to all populations in the U.S. FDA has increased outreach by developing and disseminating COVID-19 health education materials for consumers in multiple languages to diverse communities and the public overall. Everyone should have a clear understanding of why hand-washing and social distancing remain essential. Consumers need to think about how to shop for food safely. People need to know when to call their doctors and when to ask about getting tested. Health care professionals need to know how to manage their patients in this new environment, and how best to apply telemedicine, the use of which is rapidly accelerating.

I want the FDA to serve as a national resource for the public and health care community. I regard educating the public and providing accurate, reliable, up-to-date information as not just an Agency priority, but one of my own personal responsibilities as Commissioner. I will be out in public and in the media talking about how individuals can help us contain and conquer this virus.

I believe my personal experience with being self-quarantined will make me a better communicator. Being quarantined for 14 days in May was certainly no fun, but because we at FDA were already functioning very effectively virtually, I was able to continue to be fully engaged, and provide direction and leadership. And it made me even more focused on making sure consumers have all the information they need about self-protection.

We now need to look forward. A major strength of the FDA is not just in our response to a crisis, but in our ability to learn from the work we do and apply that experience in the future.

As this pandemic evolved, it was clear that some FDA processes needed to be adjusted to accommodate the urgency of the pandemic. I think the entire FDA team has now seen first-hand that we need to look at some of our processes and policies. I have instructed my staff to identify the lessons learned from this pandemic and what adjustments may be needed, not just to manage this or future emergencies, but to make FDA itself more efficient in carrying out our regulatory responsibilities.

I am committed to making sure that some of the lessons learned from managing this pandemic will lead to permanent improvements at the FDA in processes and policies.

For example, in facilitating the development of new treatments, we streamlined some of our processes.

We have taken a fresh look at how clinical trials should be designed and conducted. In a pandemic we knew we needed to get answers more quickly. For instance, early on, the FDA, National Institutes of Health, and industry worked together to facilitate the implementation of a “master protocol” that can be used in multiple clinical trials and allows for the study of more than one promising new drug for COVID-19 at a time. And we have used expanded access to meet the needs of patients who are not eligible or who are unable to participate in randomized clinical trials.

Many of the permanent changes that we will implement really represent an acceleration of where we were headed before. For example, the concept of decentralized clinical trials, in which trial procedures are conducted near the patient’s home and through use of local health care providers or local laboratories has been discussed before, and laid the foundation for some of the trials for COVID-19 products.

Another area where our pre-COVID work has informed our response to the pandemic involves the use of Real World Evidence (RWE).

In recent years, the agency has taken steps to leverage modern, rigorous analyses of real-world data—such as data from electronic health records, insurance claims, patient registries and lab results.

As the pandemic brought an urgency to these efforts, the FDA advanced collaborations with public and private partners to collect and analyze a variety of real-world data sources, using our Sentinel system and other resources.

Evaluation of real-world data has the potential to provide a wealth of rapid, actionable information to better understand disease symptoms, describe and measure immunity, and use available medical product supplies to help mitigate potential shortages. These data can also inform ongoing work to evaluate potential therapies, vaccines or diagnostics for COVID-19. The more experience we have with real world evidence, the more confidence we will have in using it for product decisions.

I mention real world evidence, but in reality, we have so many examples of how lessons learned from the pandemic will affect FDA in the future.

To the extent that the innovations and adaptations we implemented during the pandemic crisis worked and would be appropriate to implement outside of a pandemic situation, we will incorporate them into standard FDA procedures. And to the extent that we identified unnecessary barriers, we will remove them. This is one of my top priorities. Permanent change where needed will take place, and will make FDA an even stronger agency.

As I mentioned before, anything that enables quicker reviews and authorizations we will seek to make permanent.

But make no mistake. We will not cut corners on safety or effectiveness. I said this before, and I say it again. Good science as the basis for decision making has been a hallmark of my career, and is a value that I hold deeply. The American public must have confidence in the products regulated by the FDA.

Speed is important, but so are safety, accuracy and effectiveness.

FDA’s commitment to good science and rigorous data is unwavering, even as we look at how we can learn from this pandemic.

I am hopeful that this is a once-in-a-lifetime experience for all of us. An unprecedented historic event that has required an unprecedented response from us and everyone around the world.

That said, I am pleased that throughout this crisis the rest of the FDA’s work has continued, with relatively few interruptions. New drugs and devices have been authorized. Our food safety surveillance has adapted and our outbreak response resources have been maintained. Our oversight of tobacco products, including e-cigarettes, has gone on. The Agency has measured up to the challenge in all ways.

And we are well positioned as we move into a new phase, that is, transitioning back to what has come to be known as the “new normal.” Our staff has done a phenomenal job of adapting to this new normal. And I am confident that they are ready to deal with any additional upcoming challenges.

I will close with something I’ve seen reaffirmed time and time again over the past few months. That is the essential role that the FDA plays in consumer protection and beyond in advancing public health.

Before coming to the FDA, I had heard about the extraordinary dedication of the agency’s workforce. Working side by side with my colleagues in response to this pandemic, I’ve seen that characterization validated over and over.

It is my great honor to serve with so many highly skilled and committed professionals. And the American people can be assured that this agency is working around the clock for them, doing whatever is necessary to fulfill our mission to protect and promote the health of the American public.

I encourage you all to stay safe, aware, and focused as we continue to respond to the challenges of this public health emergency.

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The novel coronavirus, first detected at the end of 2019, has caused a global pandemic.

The Coronavirus Crisis

Reflections on a lost senior year with hope for the future.

Diane Adame

Elissa Nadworny

example of speech about covid 19 pandemic

East Ascension High School Valedictorian Emma Cockrum at her home in Prairieville, La., on June 1, 2020. Emily Kask for NPR hide caption

East Ascension High School Valedictorian Emma Cockrum at her home in Prairieville, La., on June 1, 2020.

Emma Cockrum was in her second week of quarantine when her father discovered an old bike behind their house.

And that bicycle turned out to be a gift: With school closed at East Ascension High School in Gonzales, La., bike riding for Emma became a way of coping with the loss of the rest of her senior year.

"I would say the first two to three weeks we were out of school, I was not the most fun person to be around. I was a ticking time bomb," says the 18-year-old, who's headed to Northwestern State University in the fall. "One minute, I would be fine and dandy, and then the next minute, I would be crying."

As she pedaled through her neighborhood each day, those bike rides forced her to stop and take in the world around her — and they became the inspiration behind these words in her valedictorian speech:

"I got to see life happening. I saw families spending time together, like children playing basketball on their driveways, or fathers teaching their own kids to ride bikes. When we stop to observe our surroundings, we are oftentimes provided with new perspectives on our situations."

Dear Class Of 2020: Graduation Messages From Frontline Workers

The coronavirus pandemic has caused many high school graduations to be replaced with virtual, drive-in and other alternative ceremonies. And so, the tradition of valedictorians and salutatorians addressing their classmates at this huge moment in their young lives is a little different this year.

NPR spoke with a few student leaders about their speeches and how a not-so-typical senior year inspired their words for the class of 2020.

Emma Cockrum

Valedictorian, East Ascension High School, Gonzales, La.

East Ascension High School Valedictorian Emma Cockrum with her dog Hercules in front of her old play house at her home in Prairieville, La. Emily Kask for NPR hide caption

East Ascension High School Valedictorian Emma Cockrum with her dog Hercules in front of her old play house at her home in Prairieville, La.

Aside from her bike rides, Cockrum was also inspired by a few words from Sol Rexius, a pastor at The Salt Company Church of Ames in Iowa. She says Rexius uses the analogy of a dump truck full of dirt being emptied all over their senior year. Here's how she put it in her address to her classmates:

This may sound harsh, but it's not untrue to how some of us feel. It is easy to feel buried by our circumstances. However, he [the pastor] goes on to paint a picture of a farmer planting a seed. Did the farmer bury the seed? Well, yes, but he also planted it. Instead of feeling buried by our situation, we must realize that the pain and heartache that has been piled upon us is not meant to bury, but to plant us in a way that will allow us to grow and prosper into who we are meant to be. As you stop and take in the circumstances around you, will you allow yourself to be buried or to be planted?

As we move on from this place and embark on the next big journey of life, whether that's college, the workforce or something else, life will at some point begin to feel like it's going too fast. My bike rides have taught me a new way to handle these times because they allow me to exercise and be among the beauty of nature, which are things that cause me to slow down. When life becomes too much like a race for you, it may not be riding a bike. It may be playing an instrument, sport, creating art or something else entirely. I encourage you to find that one thing that allows you to unwind and refocus when life seems too much to handle. Now, I'd like to take you on a bike ride with me as we share this experience together in our faces, something that is both exciting and terrifying: freedom. We sit atop our bikes of life as high school graduates and now have the freedom to choose who we are and where we will go.

Salutatorian, Paducah Tilghman High School, Paducah, Ky.

Chua says he wanted to make his speech something that would provide some happiness to people, even if only be for a little while. Before offering some advice, he began his speech with a personal take on the famous line from Forrest Gump : "Life is like a box of chocolates."

"Life is like a fistful of Sour Patch Kids," Chua says in his speech, recorded on video from his home in Paducah. "Right now things are sour, but eventually they will turn sweet."

The sharing of knowledge is just as important as receiving it because, without sharing, knowledge has no value. The first piece of advice I want to share is to always try new things and challenge yourself, even if you think it's a bad idea in the process. Always attempt to answer questions and solve problems. Find new ways to do the same tasks. Wear all white to black out. Take that ridiculously difficult course load. Buy that oversized $30 pack of UNO that is literally impossible to shuffle just so you can say you own it. Just spend responsibly, kids. All in all, just make life spicy. Make life something you want to reminisce on. The second lesson is simple. Just be nice to people. Trust sows the seeds of freedom, and a little respect truly does go a long way. It could even solve a few of the world's problems. You never know when you'll need to fall back on someone, so build strong connections early and maintain them. Lastly, the phrase "I don't know" is powerful. By admitting ignorance, you are asking to learn. Inevitably, I know I will come upon a hard stop, and I hope that when I do, I'll remind myself to pause and ask for a hand of enlightenment, so that I might come back from that hard experience knowing more than when I started. Life rarely hands you a golden opportunity, so make one. Just as the tornado creates a path in the wake of its destruction, this class of 2020 will, too, create their own, hopefully without the whole destruction part.

Kimani Ross

Valedictorian, Lake City High School, Lake City, S.C.

Valedictorian Kimani Ross leads the Lake City High School parade through downtown Lake City, SC. Taylor Adams/SCNow hide caption

Ross says she wanted to remind her class that they can get through any obstacle. She recalls the adversities they've gone through together — like the death of a beloved coach — and the people that doubted her.

Ross says she'll attend North Carolina A&T State University in the fall, where she plans to study nursing.

Many people didn't, and probably still don't believe that I have worked hard enough to be where I am now. I've had people tell me that I don't deserve to be where I am now, and that really made me contemplate, "Do I really deserve this? Should I just give up and let them win?" But look at where I am now. I'm glad that I didn't stop. I'm glad that I didn't let them get to me. I'm especially glad that I earned this position so that all of the other little girls around Lake City and surrounding areas can look and say that they want to be just like me. I want those little girls to know that they can do it if no one else believes in them, I will always believe in them. Classmates, when we're out in the real world, don't get discouraged about the obstacles that will approach you. As Michelle Obama once said, you should never view your challenges as a disadvantage. Instead, it is important for you to understand that your experience facing and overcoming adversity is actually one of your biggest advantages.

Valedictorian Kimani Ross and her family at the Lake City graduation in Lake City, SC. Taylor Adams/SCNow hide caption

Valedictorian Kimani Ross and her family at the Lake City graduation in Lake City, SC.

Lindley Andrew

Salutatorian, Jordan-Matthews High School, Siler City, N.C.

Andrew says her mind flooded with high school memories as she tried to write her speech. This inspired her to get her fellow seniors involved. With the help of her class, she strung together a timeline of national events and local victories.

"Sometimes it's the small, seemingly pointless experiences that leave the most lasting and impactful memories," she says.

Some of us lost our senior sports seasons, our chances to be captains and team leaders. Some lost our final chances to compete for clubs that we've given our all to for the last four years. Some of us lost our final opportunities to perform or display our art, and all of us lost the chance to have all of the fun and closure that we were promised would come in the last three months of our senior year. Losing the last third of our senior year to a virus was not what we had planned, but it's definitely an experience that will affect our lives forever and a memory that we will never, ever forget. We are made up of our experiences and memories. All of the things that we have been through up to this point make us who we are, and the best part is, we're not done yet. We'll continue to experience things and make memories every day that mold us here and there and to who we truly are and who we are meant to become. What kind of experiences will you create for yourself? What kind of memories will you make? When things don't go quite as planned, like our senior year, how you handle the disappointments and challenges that you face will determine the experience that you have and the memory you walk away with.

Favio Gonzalez

Valedictorian, Central Valley High School, Ceres, Calif.

Gonzalez says there were many other events besides the pandemic that helped his class develop their character. In his speech, he highlights the election of President Donald Trump and the prevalence of school shootings. Despite what was happening in the world, he says his class never victimized themselves.

Gonzalez will be attending the University of California, Riverside, where he plans to study biology.

The real test came our senior year with the current pandemic. Although society has developed a higher level of understanding, comprehension and acceptance in years prior, self-victimization has become a common occurrence and is a major impediment in achieving our goals. We expect others to find the solutions to our problems and to provide excessive help, since we truly are powerless in stopping the external factors that impact us constantly, whether it'd be natural disasters, terrorism or disease. Yet, what many people don't realize is that the impact these unfortunate events have on our lives can be nullified by the effort we place in improving our condition. Learning this from past experiences, our class did not victimize itself. Studying and mastering new material is difficult enough with the help of our amazing teachers, with the added responsibilities of helping more at the house, working an essential job and other challenges that come with being at home, it seemed impossible to keep up with schoolwork. We had to face a multitude of barriers with our unrelenting will to succeed. Standing here today, despite all of the setbacks and obstacles, because of our drive, our perseverance, our willpower to endure is stronger than any deterrent. Now, as we step into adulthood and start to reach our goals, there will be harder challenges to overcome. But our willpower has been proven irrevocable. Never forget classmates, that as long as you use your unrelenting well, you're an unstoppable force.

Barrie Barto

Valedictorian, South High School, Denver

Barto says when her school closed, she tried ignoring some of the emotions she was processing. "I realized that you need to take the time to acknowledge what we have lost and celebrate how we have grown and how this is going to change us as a class," she says.

This inspired her to write the speech she felt that she needed to hear.

To be honest with everyone, when I sat down to write this speech, I really wanted to avoid talking about everything we miss as a class. It would be way easier to reminisce about when the homecoming bonfire was in the back parking lot. But when people told me they were sorry that my whole senior year was turned upside down, I shrugged it off and said it's not a big deal. It's a hard thing to talk about, and not talking about it seems less painful. But it is a big deal. We missed senior prom and graduation and our barbecue and awards. I would even go back for one more class meeting in the auditorium just to sit in South for one more Thursday. This pandemic was not the defining event for our class. Don't let it be. We had monumental events occur every year we were at South. We have supported our teachers when they rallied for themselves. They've supported us when walking into school was harder than it was any other day. We supported each other through the pains of block day, and air conditioning only working in the winter time, but also shifts in friendships and hard times with family. South brought us all together to teach us something about ourselves that we didn't know before.

Haylie Cortez

Valedictorian, Bartlett High School, Anchorage, Alaska

Cortez says she feels lucky to still be able to give a message and was inspired by what has been helping her cope.

"One of the things that pushes me through everything is knowing that things will go on and stuff will change," she says. "I just want to remind everyone that the future is still there and it's still coming to us."

Cortez plans on attending the University of Alaska Fairbanks in the fall, where she wants to study civil engineering.

We all deserve to celebrate and be proud of ourselves. It's upsetting that we won't have a traditional graduation ceremony and sadly, we cannot control the circumstances that we face today. What we can do is choose how we respond to it as we take these next steps in life. It can be hard to imagine what life could look like as time progresses. The only certainty we have is that time goes on and the future will arrive. We can use the pandemic as an excuse for why we can't move on in life, or we can use it as a motivator to find our purpose. Whether we plan to go to college, trade school, the military or straight into the workforce, there is no denying that society will gain something worthwhile. The situation we are living through shows how valuable everyone in society is. The world is finally realizing the importance of the jobs of janitors, cashiers, teachers, politicians, first responders and more. Whatever we plan on doing after we graduate, it will impact society. I invite everyone to look to who you can't thank, and take your time to do so, although the door for high school has abruptly shut for us. I would like to remind everyone that another has opened and we can do with it what we want.

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Springer Nature - PMC COVID-19 Collection

COVID-19 pandemic crisis—a complete outline of SARS-CoV-2

Sana saffiruddin shaikh.

1 Y. B. Chavan College of Pharmacy, Dr. Rafiq Zakaria Campus, Aurangabad, 431001 India

Anooja P. Jose

2 Government College of Pharmacy, Aurangabad, 431001 India

Disha Anil Nerkar

Midhuna vijaykumar kv, saquib khaleel shaikh, associated data.

The data and material are available upon request. The graphs and figures used in the manuscript were generated and analyzed and are not used anywhere else before.

Coronavirus (SARS-CoV-2), the cause of COVID-19, a fatal disease emerged from Wuhan, a large city in the Chinese province of Hubei in December 2019.

Main body of abstract

The World Health Organization declared COVID-19 as a pandemic due to its spread to other countries inside and outside Asia. Initial confirmation of the pandemic shows patient exposure to the Huanan seafood market. Bats might be a significant host for the spread of coronaviruses via an unknown intermediate host. The human-to-human transfer has become a significant concern due to one of the significant reasons that is asymptomatic carriers or silent spreaders. No data is obtained regarding prophylactic treatment for COVID-19, although many clinical trials are underway.

The most effective weapon is prevention and precaution to avoid the spread of the pandemic. In this current review, we outline pathogenesis, diagnosis, treatment, ongoing clinical trials, prevention, and precautions. We have also highlighted the impact of pandemic worldwide and challenges that can help to overcome the fatal disease in the future.

Coronaviruses (CoVs) are a large family of RNA viruses; they show discrete point-like projections over their surface. They show the presence of an unusually large RNA genome and a distinctive replication strategy. The term “coronavirus” is acquired from the “crown”-like morphology. Coronaviruses show potential fatal human respiratory infections and cause a variety of diseases in animals and birds [ 1 ]. Coronavirus primarily targets the human respiratory system [ 2 ]. The World Health Organization (WHO) named the latest virus as severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) on 12 January 2020 [ 3 ]. The COVID-19 or the SARS-CoV-2 is rapidly unfurling from Wuhan in Hubei Province of China to worldwide [ 4 ].

Initial confirmation of the pandemic was carried out by conducting studies on 99 patients with COVID-19 pneumonia, from which 49% of patients exhibited a history of subjection to the Huanan seafood market. The patient examined had a clinical manifestation of fever, cough, shortness of breath, muscle ache, and sore throat-like symptoms [ 5 ]. COVID-19 has infected several hundreds of humans and has caused many fatal cases [ 6 ]. Worldwide, there have been 3,925,815 confirmed cases, including 274,488 deaths of COVID-19 as of 6:37 pm CEST 10 May 2020 reported to WHO [ 7 ].

This article outlines and gives a complete overview of SARS-CoV-2, including its pathogenesis, diagnosis, treatment, prevention, and precautions. This article also provides the current scenario of the pandemic worldwide, since new findings are rapidly evolving and can help the readers in upgrading their knowledge about the COVID-19. It also emphasizes the challenges faced by giving an idea about future strategies in fighting and preventing recurrence.

History and origin

Coronaviruses were not expected to be highly infectious to humans, but the outburst of a severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) in Guangdong province China in the years 2002 and 2003 proved to be devastating. SARS-CoV is the contributory agent of the SARS, also known as “atypical pneumonia”. The coronaviruses that spread before that time in humans mostly caused mild infections in immune-competent people. But after the emergence of SARS, another highly infectious coronavirus, MERS-CoV, appeared in Middle Eastern countries [ 8 , 9 ]. Research has shown that SARS-CoV-2 shows similarities with SARS-CoV and MERS-CoV. (Table (Table1) 1 ) depicts a comparison of SARS-CoV-2 with SARS-CoV and MERS-CoV [ 10 – 16 ]. Several disseminating strains of coronaviruses were identified and were considered harmless pathogens, causing common cold and mild upper respiratory illness [ 17 ]. HCoV-229E [ 18 ] strain was isolated in 1966. HCoV-NL63 was first isolated from the Netherlands during late 2004. In 2012, MERS-CoV was first identified from the lung of a 60-year-old patient who was suffering from acute pneumonia and renal failure in Saudi Arabia [ 19 ]. About 8000 cases and 800 deaths worldwide were observed due to the outbreak of SARS first human pandemic in the dawn of the twenty-first century [ 20 ].

Comparison of coronaviruses

Note: despite the lower case fatality rate observed in COVID-19, the overall number of death far outweighs that from SARS and MERS

The α-CoVs HCoV-229E and HCoV-NL63 and β-CoVs HCoV-HKU1 and HCoV-OC43 are identified as a human susceptible virus with low pathogenicity and cause mild respiratory symptoms similar to common cold [ 21 ]. SARS-CoV and MERS-CoV result in severe respiratory tract infections [ 22 , 23 ]. COVID-19 was recently reported from Wuhan (China), which has cases in Thailand, Japan, South Korea, and the USA, which has been confirmed as a new coronavirus [ 24 ].

The coronavirus genera, which mostly infect mammals, are alpha-coronavirus and beta-coronavirus. Out of 15 presently assigned viral species, seven were isolated from bats. The research proposed that bats are significant hosts for alpha-coronaviruses and beta-coronaviruses and play an essential role as the gene source in the evolution of these two coronavirus genera SARS and MERS [ 25 ]. The genome sequence was found to be 96.2% identical to a bat CoV RaTG13, whereas it shares 79.5% identity to SARS-CoV. The virus genome sequencing outcomes and evolutionary analysis show that bat can be a natural host from virus source, and SARS-CoV-2 might be transferred from bats through unspecified intermediate hosts to infect humans [ 26 ]. It is found that SARS-CoV-2 affects males more than females [ 27 ]. The spread of SARS-CoV-2 emerged like a wild forest fire in many countries worldwide. Table ( (2) 2 ) [ 28 ] gives a brief of the first identified cases of COVID-19 in different countries.

First confirmed case

The first confirmed case was reported in China, and since then, there was a widespread of coronavirus in other countries worldwide. Table Table1 1 shows the first confirmed case with dates

Coronaviruses are spherical to pleomorphic enveloped particles [ 29 ]. The size ranges from 80 to 120 nm in diameter. The maximum size is as small as 50 nm and as large as 200 nm are also seen [ 30 ]. There are four types of main structural proteins observed in the coronaviruses: the spike (S), membrane (M), envelope (E), and nucleocapsid (N) proteins, which are encoded within the viral genome (Table (Table3). 3 ). In thin sections, the virion envelope may be visualized as inner and outer shells separated by a translucent space [ 31 ]. The virion envelope contains phospholipids, glycolipids, cholesterol, di- and triglycerides, and free fatty acids in proportions. The complexed genome RNA is with the basic nucleocapsid (N) protein, which forms a helical capsid established within the viral membrane. The enclosed glycoproteins are responsible for attachment to the host cells [ 32 ].

Structural proteins of coronavirus and their functions

According to the recent studies, it is observed that coronavirus which lacks envelope protein (E) serves as a good candidate in vaccine designing

The coronavirus genomes are among the most massive mature RNA molecules as compared to other eukaryotic RNAs (Fig. (Fig.1) 1 ) [ 33 ]. The genome of these viruses contains multiple ORFS. A typical CoV consists of at least 6 ORFs in its genome. Several studies have confirmed the genetic resemblance between SARS-CoV-2 and a bat CoV.

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Structure of novel coronavirus

A study conducted to compare the genetic mutations of COVID showed genomic mutations among viruses from different countries, wherein a sequence obtained from Nepal showed minimum to no variations. In contrast, the maximum number of modifications was obtained from one derived from the Indian series located in ORF1-ab nsp2 nsp3 helicase ORF8 and spike surface glycoprotein. Also, host antiviral mRNAs play a critical part in the regulation of immune response to virus infection, depending upon the viral agent. The unique host mRNAs could be explored in the development of novel antiviral therapies. The club-like surface projections or peplomers of coronaviruses are about 17–20 nm from the virion surface. It has a subtle base that swells to a width of about 10 nm at the distal extremity. Some coronaviruses that exhibit the second set of projections about 5–10-nm long are present beneath the significant projections. These shorter spikes are now known as hemagglutinin-esterase (HE) protein, an additional membrane protein found in a subset of group 2 coronaviruses. The primary role of this non-essential protein is to aid in viral entry and pathogenesis in vivo. It configures short projections that bind to N-acetyl-9-O-acetlyneuramic acid or N-glycolylneuraminic acid and have esterase [ 34 – 39 ]. Figure Figure2 2 shows the primary classification of coronavirus.

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Classification of coronavirus

Lifecycle of coronavirus

The life cycle of the virus with the host consists of the following four steps: attachment, penetration, biosynthesis, maturation, and release (Fig. (Fig.3). 3 ). Once the virus binds to the host receptor, they enter host cells through endocytosis or membrane fusion. Once the viral contents are released inside the host cells, viral RNA enters the nucleus for replication. Viral mRNA is used to make viral proteins and is further proceeded by maturation and release [ 40 , 41 ].

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Attachment and entry

The virion attachment with the host cell is initiated by interaction between S protein and its receptors, which is also a primary determinant for coronavirus infection. The S protein undergoes acid-dependent proteolytic cleavage, which results in exposure of fusion peptide. This fusion is followed by the formation of a six-helix bundle (bundle formation helps in combining viral and cellular membrane) and release of the viral genome into the cytoplasm.

Replicase protein expression

The process of translation of replicase gene ORFs1a and ORFs1b and translation of polyprotein pp1a and pp1ab takes place. Assembly of nsps into replicase-transcriptase complex (RTC) leads to viral RNA synthesis (replication and transcription of subgenomic RNAs).

Replication and transcription

In the replication process, the viral RNA synthesis is followed by the production of genomic and sub-genomic RNAs (sub-genomic mRNAs), which further leads to recombination of the virus.

Assembly and release

The insertion and translation of viral structure protein S, E, and M takes place into the endoplasmic reticulum (ER), which is followed by the movement of proteins along the secretory pathway into ERGIC (endoplasmic reticulum Golgi intermediate compartment). The viral genome is encapsidated by N protein into the membrane of ERGIC. M and E protein expression give rise to the formation of virus-like particles (VLPs). After the assembly of the virion and its transportation to cell surface vesicles, exocytosis takes place. Finally, it results in viral release (E protein helps by altering the host secretory pathway).

The incubation period is the period between the entry of the virus into the host and appearance of signs and symptoms in the host or the period between the earliest date of contact of the transmission source and the most initial time of symptom onset (i.e., cough, fever, fatigue, or myalgia) [ 42 ]. The incubation period of COVID-19 is vital as the disease could be transmitted during this phase through asymptomatic as well as symptomatic carriers (Table (Table4). 4 ). The inhaled virus SARS-CoV-2 binds to the epithelial cells present in the nasal cavity and starts replicating.

Incubation period of coronaviruses

On the basis of studies conducted and data findings, virologists points out that incubation period extends to 14 days, with a median time of 4–5 days from exposure to symptom onset. One study reported that 97.5% of persons with COVID-19 who develop symptoms will do so within 11.5 days of SARS-CoV-2 infection

ACE2 is the primary receptor for both SARS-CoV-2 and SARS-CoV, which is an asymptomatic state (initial 1–2 days of infection). Upper airway and conducting airway response are seen the next few days. The disease is mild and mostly restricted only to the upper conducting airways for about 80% of the infected patients [ 43 ].

The incubation period is required to create more productive quarantine systems for people infected with the virus. The incubation period for the COVID-19 is between 2 and 14 days after exposure. A newly infected person shows symptoms in the about 5 days after contact with a sick patient. In most patients, symptoms appeared after 12–14 days of infection

The average incubation period was approximated to be 5.1 days, and 97.5% of those who develop symptoms will do so within 11.5 days of infection. In Wuhan’s return patients, the average incubation period is found to be 6.4 days. In a case reported by Hubei province, local government on 22 February showed an incubation period of 27 days. In another case, an incubation period of 19 days was observed. Therefore a 24-day observation period is considered in suspected cases by the Chinese government and also by WHO [ 44 – 51 ]. The frequency of cases is increasing day by day, and it is essential to keep a check over it. Figure Figure4 4 gives a glance of confirmed cases cumulative and death overtime cumulative from 10 January onwards up to 25 May.

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a Graph of confirmed (cumulative) cases overtime in various countries . b Graph of death (cumulative) overtime in various countries

Pathogenesis

Like other CoVs, the SARS-CoV-2 is transmitted primarily via respiratory droplets and possible faeco-oral transmission routes [ 52 ]. Figure Figure5 5 gives a complete outline of the pathogenesis of coronavirus. On infection, primary viral replication is expected to occur in the mucosal epithelium of the upper respiratory tract with further multiplication into the lower respiratory tract and GI mucosa, giving rise to mild viremia. The virus enters the host cells through two methods either:

I. Direct entry
II. Endocytosis

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Complete pathogenesis of coronavirus

These are positive sense ss-RNA viruses that can cause respiratory, enteric, hepatic, and neurologic diseases. High binding capacity with SARS-CoV-2 was observed by molecular biological analysis [ 53 ]. The ACE2 gene encodes the angiotensin-converting enzyme-2 receptor for both the SARS-CoV and the human respiratory coronavirus NL63. Recent studies show that ACE2 could be the host receptor for the novel coronavirus 2019-nCoV/SARS-CoV-2 [ 54 ].

Human angiotensin-converting enzyme 2 (hACE2), which was the binding receptor of SARS-CoV, is analogous to SARS-CoV-2. These hACE2 are type 1 membrane proteins expressed in various cells of the nasal mucosa, lung, bronchus, heart, kidney, intestines, bladder, stomach, esophagus, and ileum. It functions as an enzyme in the RAS and is, therefore, mainly associated with cardiovascular diseases [ 55 ].

The zinc peptidase ACE2 has also expressed in the alveolar type 2 pneumocytes, which explains its role in lung damage due to SARS-CoV. The SARS-CoV-2 shows 10–12-fold more affinity towards the proteins than the other SARS-CoV. Pathophysiology and virulence of the virus link to the function of its nsps and structural proteins. The nsp can block the host’s innate mechanism response while the virus envelope increases the pathogenicity as it assists the assembly and release of the virus [ 56 ].

The CoV spike glycoproteins comprise of three segments—a large ectodomain, a single-pass transmembrane anchor, and a small intracellular tail. The ectodomain is composed of the receptor-binding domain (RBD)—the S1 and the membrane fusion subunit S2. The two significant areas in s1, N-terminal domain (NTD) and the c-terminal domain (CTD), have been identified. The S1 NTDs are essential for binding to the sugar receptors, and the s1 CTDs are responsible for binding receptors ACE2, SPN, and DPP4 [ 57 ]. The S proteins undergo a considerable structural rearrangement to fuse with the viral membrane of the host cell membrane. The s1 subunit shedding and the s2 subunit transition to a highly stable conformation is the initial step in the fusion process [ 58 ]. The ACE2 consists of the N-terminal peptidase domain (NPD) and the C-terminal collectrin-like domain (CCTD) that ends with a single transmembrane helix and a 40 residue intracellular segment. It provides a direct binding site for S protein of CoVs.

The enzymes which assist this virus attachment include the serine protease enzymes TMPRSS2. These enzymes, which are cell-surface proteases, facilitate entry. In endosomes, the S1 of s proteins is cleaved, and the fusion peptides S2 are exposed. This exposed S2 unit brings the HR1 and HR2 together, resulting in membrane fusion and thereby release of viral package into the host membrane [ 59 ].

The viral RNA enters the nucleus for replication after the viral contents are released. Viral mRNA is used to make viral proteins. Decreased expression of ACE2 in a host cell results in an attack on the airway epithelium by the virus. These lead to acute lung injury that triggers immune responses. The release of various pro-inflammatory and chemokines like IL-6, IFN- gamma, MCPI 1, and IL-10 leads to capillary permeability in alveolar sacs. Due to local inflammation in the lungs, the secretion of pro-inflammatory cytokines and chemokines increases into the blood circulation of the patient. It results in fluid filling and increased difficulty in the exchange of gases across the membrane. Viral replication and infection in airway epithelial cells could cause high levels of virus-linked pyroptosis with associated vascular leakage. IL-beta cytokine released during pyroptosis is a highly inflammatory form of programmed cell death, which is the trigger subsequent inflammatory response. The IgG antibodies against SARS-CoV-2 N protein can be detected in the serum in the early stages at the onset of the disease. The non-neutralizing antibodies result in ADE (antibody-dependent enhancement), which leads to an increased systematic inflammatory response.

The pro-inflammatory cytokines and chemokines are an indicator of T H cells. Secretions from such cytokines and chemokines attract immune cell monocytes and T lymphocytes. High levels of pro-inflammatory cytokines, including IL-2, IL-7, IL-10, IP-10, G-CSF, MCP-1, MIP-1A, and TNF alpha, were detected in the severe infection called cytokine storm or cytokine release syndrome as a crucial factor in the pathogenesis of COVID-19.

The cytokine storm increases the inflammatory response resulting in increased blood plasma levels of neutrophils IL-6, IL-10, granulocytes, MCP1, TNF, and decreased organ perfusion, which results in multiple organ failure. Cytokine storm and pulmonary edema due to ACE2 dysregulation result in acute respiratory distress syndrome. SARS-CoV-2 can also affect the CNS [ 60 ]. Myocardial damage increases the difficulty and complexity of patient treatment [ 61 ]. Clinical investigations have shown that patients with cardiac diseases, hypertension, or diabetes, who are treated with ACE2-increasing drugs, including inhibitors and blockers, are at higher risk of getting infected with SARS-CoV2 [ 62 ]. Death results due to ARDS and multiple organ failure.

People with COVID-19 infection show symptoms ranging from mild to severe illness. Figure Figure6 6 shows a brief outline of various symptoms related to COVID-19. The warning signs and symptoms such as trouble breathing, constant pain or pressure in the chest, inability to wake or stay awake, and bluish lips or face are observed in patients [ 63 ]. Older people (65 years and older) are at higher risk of developing the disease.

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Symptoms for coronavirus

According to a study, people of all ages having asthma, diabetes, HIV, liver diseases, severe heart conditions, severe obesity (body mass index [BMI] of 40 or higher), and chronic kidney diseases undergoing dialysis show a higher mortality rate. The other populations with people showing disabilities, pregnancy, and breastfeeding and people experiencing homelessness, racial, and minority groups are at elevated risk of transmission of disease [ 64 ]. The crucial fact to know about coronavirus on surfaces is that they can easily be cleaned with ordinary household disinfectants that will kill the virus [ 65 ]. Studies have shown (Fig. (Fig.7) 7 ) that the COVID-19 virus can survive for up to 72 h on plastic and stainless steel, about 4 h on copper, and less than 24 h on cardboard [ 66 ].

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Survival of virus on various objects

Diagnosis: COVID-19

There are two categories of tests available for COVID-19:

Viral tests: a viral analysis indicates whether a person has a current infection.
Antibody tests: an antibody indicates whether a person had an infection.

The protection of getting infected again in a person showing the presence of antibodies to the virus is still unexplained [ 67 ].

Tests for current infection

A swab sample is collected (from the nose) to conclude that a person is currently infected with SARS-CoV-2. Some tests are called as point-of-care tests, which means their results may be available in less than an hour. Other test takes 1–2 days for analyzing after being received by the laboratory [ 68 ].

Test for past infection

Antibody tests analyze a blood sample for the presence of antibodies, which show if one had a previous infection with the virus. Antibody tests cannot be used to diagnose someone as being currently infected with COVID-19. Antibody tests are accessible through healthcare providers and laboratories [ 69 ]. In severe cases, clinical diagnosis is done based on the clinical manifestations of respiratory failure syndrome, increased liver function tests, blood tests indicating leukopenia, and high levels of ferritin. For such, a test for soluble CD-163 (sCD-163), showing the activation of macrophages, was suggested [ 70 ]. Laboratory diagnosis included genomic sequencing, reverse-transcription polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR), and serological methods (such as enzyme-linked immunoassay [ELISA]). Because of the rapidly changing diversity found in the expression of the novel coronavirus, pneumonia became diverse and quickly changed. Other methods used are radiographic images for early observations and evaluation of disease severity [ 71 ].

Reverse-transcription polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) shows high sensitivity for new SARS cases. The suspected cases must be confirmed by using RT-PCR and other methods (slower methods) of detection such as serology or viral culture, isolation, and identification by electron microscopy, thereby causing a significant increase in the time required for an accurate diagnosis [ 72 ]. The samples are collected from upper and lower respiratory tracts through expectorated sputum, bronchoalveolar lavage, or endotracheal aspirate, which are then assessed by conducting polymerase chain reaction for viral RNA. It is recommended to repeat the test for reevaluation purposes in case of a positive result, and if the test is negative, a strong clinical impression also permits repeat testing [ 73 ].

An alternative diagnostic test to detect the SARS-CoV is mass spectroscopic identification of microbial nucleic acid signatures. Computed tomography images of the lungs showed 100% multiple patchy with fine mesh and consolidated shade distributed under the pleura. Nucleic acid tests were conducted in 187 patients, and all were positive to SARS-CoV-2. In the pulmonary CT images, 8% of them (15 cases) showed diffused lesions in either lungs or white lung. In the absorptive period, 98.9% showed fibrogenesis and diminished lesions. The CT imaging features differed from each follow-up showing different clinical symptoms [ 74 ]. The improvement in the detection of COVID-19 was found by the ELISA method. It is based on SARS r-CoV Rp3 nucleocapsid protein, which helps to detect the IgM and IgG against SARS-CoV-2. ELISA is a highly recommended method as the sampling blood is less stringent, and antibodies allow longer windows than oropharyngeal swabs for detecting viruses [ 75 ].

There is no particular treatment recommended for COVID-19. There is no data obtained regarding prophylactic treatment for COVID-19, only we can prevent from coming in contact with the pathogen. Confirmed cases are hospitalized and admitted in the same ward. Patients with mild symptoms may not require hospitalization [ 76 ]. They are isolated or self-isolated at home by following the doctor’s advice. Critically ill patients (respiratory shock, respiratory failure, septic shock, or other organ failures) should be admitted to ICU as soon as possible [ 77 ].

General treatment

The general treatment includes bed rest and supportive measures ensuring sufficient intake of calories, fluid, and electrolytes, and maintenance of acid-base homeostasis. Monitoring oxygen saturation and vital signs, keeping the respiratory tract unobstructed and inhaling oxygen, measuring C-reactive protein, hematology and biochemistry laboratory testing and ECG, blood gas analysis, and examining of chest images as when required and monitoring for any complications [ 78 ]. Patients having high body temperature above 38.5°C Celsius are administered with ibuprofen and acetaminophen orally.

Oxygen therapy

Patients with conditions of obstructed breathing, respiratory distress, shock, coma, and convulsions must receive oxygen therapy and airway management, targeting SpO2 more significant than 94%. Initiate O 2 treatment at 5 L/min and titrated to reach the target or use a face mask with a reservoir bag (10–15 L/min) if the patients are in critical condition.

Once stable, the target is 90% SpO2 in non-pregnant adults and 95% in pregnant adults. The use of nasal prongs or nasal cannula is preferred in young children, as they may be better tolerated. When oxygen therapy fails, mechanical ventilation is necessary. In a meta-analysis, the use of additional oxygen therapy (38.9%), non-invasive (7.1%) and invasive ventilation (28.7%), and even ECMO (0.9%) was surprisingly high among the 1876 patients in which any kind of pharmacological and supportive intervention was reported [ 79 ].

Antiviral agents

Remdesivir inhibits virus infection at the micromolar level (0.77–1.13 μM) and with high selectivity [ 80 ]. Remdesivir gets incorporated into viral RNA due to its adenosine analog nature and results in premature chain termination [ 81 ]. Remdesivir is not approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). It is only recommended for mild or moderate COVID-19 conditions and the treatment of hospitalized adults and children in emergencies.

Chloroquine/hydroxychloroquine

Chloroquine increases endosomal pH, making the environment unfavorable for viral cell fusion. It also affects the glycosylation process of ACE-2. On administering chloroquine after 1 h of infection, gradual loss of antiviral activity was seen, though it affects the endosome fusion when administered shortly after the infection. When administered after 3–5 h after the infection, chloroquine was significantly effective against HCoV strain OC43 [ 82 ]. There is an excessive risk of toxicities due to high chloroquine doses; the recommended dose for chloroquine is 600 mg twice daily for 10 days for the treatment of COVID-19.

Interferon–alpha

Interferon-α is used in treating bronchiolitis; viral pneumonia; acute upper respiratory tract infection; hand, foot, and mouth disease; SARS; and other viral infections in children. According to the clinical research and experiences, the following usage is recommended for COVID-19

Interferon-α nebulization: interferon-α 200,000–400,000 IU/kg or 2–4 μg/kg in 2 mL sterile water, nebulization two times per day for 5–7 days
Interferon-α2b spray: applied for high-risk populations with close contact with suspected COVID-19 infected patients or those in the early phase with only upper respiratory tract symptoms.

Lopinavir/ritonavir

In a clinical trial among adult patients of or less than 18 years, it was observed that a combination of lopinavir/ritonavir, ribavirin, and interferon beta-1b would speed up the recovery, suppress the viral load, shorten hospitalization, and reduce mortality compared with lopinavir/ritonavir [ 83 ].

Immune-based therapy

Patients who show an inadequate response to initial therapy can get benefit from immunoglobulin [ 84 ]. Non-SARS-CoV-2-specific IVIG should not be used for COVID-19 except in case of clinical trials.

Corticosteroids

Corticosteroids are widely used in the symptomatic treatment of severe pneumonia. According to a detailed review and analysis, the result indicates that patients with severe conditions required corticosteroid therapy [ 85 ]. According to a systematic review of literature, daily use of corticosteroids in a COVID-19 patient is not encouraged; however, some studies suggest that methylprednisolone can reduce the mortality rate in more severe conditions, such as in ARDS [ 86 ].

Antimicrobial therapy

Patients with a mild type of bacterial infection can take oral antibiotics, such as cephalosporin or fluoroquinolones. Although a patient may be a suspect for COVID-19, appropriate antimicrobial agent should be administered within an hour of recognition of sepsis. Antibiotic therapy should be based on the clinical diagnosis of community-acquired pneumonia, healthcare-associated pneumonia, local epidemiology, susceptibility data, and national treatment guidelines. When there is the ongoing local circulation of seasonal influenza, this therapy with a neuraminidase inhibitor should be considered for the treatment for patients [ 87 ].

Tocilizumab

According to a review, 25 patients with laboratory-confirmed severe COVID-19 who received tocilizumab and completed 14 days of follow-up, 36% were discharged alive from the intensive care unit, and 12% died [ 88 ]. The biopsy specimen analysis suggested that increased alveolar exudates resulted from an immune response against an inflammatory cytokine storm. Probably an obstruction in alveolar gas exchange contributed to the high mortality rate of severe COVID-19 patients. A study identified that pathogenic T cells and inflammatory monocytes arouse an inflammatory storm with a large amount of interleukin 6. Tocilizumab blocks IL-6 receptors, which shows encouraging clinical results, including controlling temperature quickly and improved respiratory functions. Henceforth, tocilizumab is useful in the treatment of severe COVID-19 patients to calm the inflammatory storm and reduce mortality [ 89 ].

FDA-approved drug ivermectin for parasitic infection has a possibility for reprocessing and acts as an inhibitor of SARS-CoV-2 in vitro. A single therapy can affect approximately 500-fold reduction and effectual loss of substantially all viral material by 48 h [ 90 ]. A single of ivermectin, in combination with doxycycline, yielded the near-miraculous result in curing the patients with COVID-19 virtually.

Azithromycin

Azithromycin is used for patients with viral pneumonia from COVID-19. It can also work synergistically and coactively with other antiviral treatments. It has also shown antiviral activity against the Zika virus and rhinoviruses, which cause the common cold. Viral infection was significantly reduced in patients receiving hydroxychloroquine than those who did not. The virus elimination was efficient in patients who received both azithromycin and hydroxychloroquine [ 91 ]. (Table (Table5) 5 ) lists other supporting agents used in treatment [ 92 ].

Supporting agents used in treatment

The repurposing of available therapeutic drugs is being used as supporting agents in the treatment of COVID-19; however, the efficacy of these treatments should be verified by using designed clinical trials

Precautions and preventions

WHO declared the COVID-19 outbreak as a public health emergency of international concern on 30 January 2020. Unfortunately, no medication until now is approved by the FDA, and various trials are going on. Still, the most effective weapon the community has in hand is the prevention of spread. The following are some of the COVID-19 prevention measures.

Quarantine: self-quarantine, mandatory quarantine (private residence, hospital, public institution, etc.)
Other measures: avoiding crowding, hand hygiene, isolation, personal protective equipment, school/workplace measures/closures, social distancing [ 93 ].

Asymptomatic carriers as the “silent spreaders” are of great concern for the elimination of disease and its control. So, more attention should be given to them [ 94 ]. Hand hygiene with alcohol-based hand-rub is globally recommended as productive and economical procedures against SARS-CoV-2 cross-transmission [ 95 ]. The economic implications of hand hygiene have been established. It has been found that this cost under 1% of total HAI-related economics. It is better to invest not only in the materials needed but also in the people working there. This investment will lead to an increase in the health outcome [ 96 ]. The clinical presentation of COVID-19 is non-specific, so it needs a robust and accurate diagnosis. It has been suggested that before stopping the infection control measures, we have to be sure to exclude the diagnosis [ 97 ]. Prevention plays a vital role in treating and defeating the COVID-19 disaster.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention gives standard precautions (Fig. (Fig.8) 8 ) and recommends measures to prevent COVID-19. Wear personnel protective equipment (face shield, mask, gown, gloves, and closed-toed shoes) when evaluating persons at risk. N-95 masks are known to prevent up to 95% of small particles, including viruses [ 98 ]. Cover all coughs/sneezes with a tissue and then throw the tissue away. Regularly clean/disinfect frequently touched objects and surfaces with household cleaning spray and use a tissue when handling (e.g., doorknobs, sink taps, water fountain handles, elevator buttons, cross-walk buttons, and shopping carts). Avoid contact with infected people (recommended > 6 ft) and maintain an appropriate distance as much as possible and refrain from touching nose eyes and mouth [ 99 ]. Avoid well persons when you are ill. Wear a mask continuously if taking care of persons with respiratory illness. To turn on the tap, use a paper towel and then wash hands with soap and water for at least 30 s after going to the bathroom. Use hand sanitizer and carry whenever at a public venue. Activate community-based interventions (e.g., cancel sporting events, dismiss, termination of universities and schools, practice social distancing, create employee plans to work remotely) [ 100 ]. Create a household-ready plan. Cancel any non-essential travel [ 101 ]. Frequent disinfection and cleaning are advised for groups that are at risk of contracting the virus [ 102 ].

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Prevention and precaution

In an Indian study mathematical approach was used to address some questions related to intervention strategies to control the COVID-19 transmission in India. Some hypothetical epidemic curves helped to illustrate the critical findings [ 103 ]. Predication of spread and implications of prevention and control using the Maximum-Hasting (MH) parameter assessment method and the modified Susceptible Exposed Infectious Recovered (SEIR) model was done. Suppression, mitigation, and mildness were the three predicted outlines for the spread of infection in some African countries [ 104 ].

Infection control strategies that can be acquired in hospitals were accomplished in a Taiwanese hospital to tackle the COVID-19 pandemic. These included emergency vigilance and responses from the hospital administration, education, surveillance, patient flow arrangement, the partition of hospital zones, and the prevention of a systemic shutdown by using the “divided cabin, divided flow” strategy. These measures may not be universally appropriate [ 105 ]. The preventive measures implemented in China included countrywide health education campaigns. The Examine and Approve Policy on the continuation of work, working and living quarters, a health Quick Response code system, community screening, and social distancing policies were some of the preventive measures [ 106 ].

Based on the analysis of immigration population data, the Epidemic Risk Time Series Model was outlined to estimate the effectiveness of COVID-19 epidemic control and prevention among different regions in China. Compared to other methods, this model was able to issue early recognition more instantaneously. For the prevention and control of COVID-19, this model can be generalized and applied to other countries [ 107 ]. The majority of clinical trials involving COVID-19 vaccines or treatment are showing encouraging results. (Tables (Tables6 6 and and7) 7 ) show ongoing phase 3 and 4 clinical trials [ 108 ].

Ongoing clinical trials phase 3 studies

Ongoing clinical trials, phase 4 studies

Impact of COVID-19 on overall health of the people worldwide

The international response to COVID-19 has been more transparent and efficient when compared to the SARS outbreak [ 109 ].

The pandemic COVID-19, being a most severe strainer, is affecting the overall health system worldwide. There is a continuously increasing demand for healthcare facilities and associated workers, which is overstretching the ability to operate efficiently [ 110 ]. Some pieces of evidence are showing a destructive effect on maternal and child health. Some financial, educational, sanitation, and even clinical constraints are threatening the overall population of the children [ 111 ]. As coronavirus is sweeping across the world, the primary psychological impact is elevated in terms of stress and anxiety. The quarantine period is expected to raise cases involving suicidal behavior, substance abuse, self-harm, depression, and loneliness. WHO Department of Mental Health and Substance use has given some messages to overcome psychological impacts [ 112 ]. There is a relationship between human development and infectious diseases. Whichever changes (new technology, constructions of dams, deforestations, migration, increasing populations, the emergence of urban ghettoes, globalization of food, and increasing international travel) brought about by the development, are stretching the word into the mouth of such pandemics indirectly. This pandemic is having a significant impact on the global economy as the erosion of capacity and rise in poverty [ 113 , 114 ].

COVID-19 has affected the population differently based on gender. Significantly, this crisis is affecting the reproductive and sexual health of women. Another point is that there should be an equal contribution to both the genders in any healthcare body. There should be more distribution of decision-making power among them [ 115 ]. Protective measures can effectively prevent COVID-19 infection, including improving personal hygiene, wearing N95 masks, adequate rest, and proper ventilation [ 116 ].

Have to learn to live with COVID-19

The Health Ministry has said that we have to learn to survive with COVID-19. We cannot step ahead by carrying the burden of COVID-19 that could recur annually and kill so many people [ 117 ]. Governments are learning to strike a balance between controlling COVID-19 spread and allowing individual freedoms and economic activity. Measures such as lockdowns, arbitrary travel bans, widespread quarantines, intrusive screening of people crossing boundaries can be adopted for prevention. Virtual work will become much more common. Supplier close-downs, sudden employee truancy, and demand collapse caused by disease outbreaks will make the businesses able to withstand disruptions.

The government, industry, or specialist certification for disease control processes and standards similar to ISO 9001 or USFDA certificate will be a crucial part of many businesses. The cost of traveling will expand more due to the risk of infection and lockdown. At the same time, the responsibility of work airlines, hotels, and restaurants will be added to minimize infection risk. Delivery businesses will perform well, and “Contactless delivery” is already a thing.

The industries that provide products to help circumvent, control, diminish, or treat COVID-19 will flourish. The requirement for hospital rooms will increase tremendously, with an increasing need for reserves of equipment, supplies, and drugs. In the upcoming time, businesses are likely to face demand crisis as the world comes to terms with living in a state of medical beleaguerment [ 118 ]. It is just a prediction, but we can still aspire for the best [ 119 ]. The most destructive effects would be in countries with weak health systems, on-going disputes, or existing infectious disease epidemics.

In contrast, the health systems in high-income countries would be stretched out by the outbreak [ 120 ]. It has been seen that resources are limited in countries with poor scientific infrastructure, such as Nepal, where there was only one laboratory equipped to test for coronavirus infection. Fear and stigma is an evident feature of the COVID-19; it has affected the economic and social development of many countries worldwide [ 121 ].

The insufficiency of the trained workforce capable of performing experiments required to test for SARS-CoV-2 and interpret the results is another major limitation in the testing and confinement of COVID-19 in developing countries [ 122 ]. The virus has the potential to adapt and get through the different environmental conditions, which makes it quite difficult to identify its mode of survival [ 123 ]. Another crucial impediment in a research project is a suitable model to investigate in vivo mechanism associated with the pathogenesis of SARS-CoV-2 [ 124 – 126 ].

Current screening approaches for COVID-19 are likely to miss approximately 50% of the infected cases, even in countries with sound health systems and available diagnostic capacities. Many symptoms correlated with COVID-19 are similar to malaria, such as fever, difficulty in breathing, fatigue, and headaches of acute onset. If symptoms alone are used to specify a case during the emergency period then, a malaria case may be misinterpreted as COVID-19. The symptoms for malaria are seen within 10–15 days after an infective bite; multi-organ failure is common in severe cases among adults, while respiratory distress is also expected in children [ 127 ].

COVID-19 has emerged as the most terrified and enormous viral infection. According to WHO, the coronavirus might become an endemic disease. Originating from China as a global pandemic, it has influenced people on a large scale. There is no clear end that can be seen for this contagious disease. The only possible cure for this pandemic is prevention. We have to face it as a global community and support each other. The amplification of positivity will have a tremendous impact on the whole society. It is the duty of each individual for self-supervision and to report COVID-19 status, and challenging for those who appear to be ill. The other measure which can be followed to tackle this pandemic is healthy nourishment, sanitation, and hygiene practices robust connection and communication among children, and counseling to face the situation. Special care should be given to older people and pregnant ladies. It is better to get information only from the trusted sources; it is vital to get the facts and not the misinformation or rumors. Healthcare servants should have excellent and accurate communication with the public and must provide emotional and practical support. The ongoing pandemic of COVID-19 has caused not only notable morbidity and mortality in the world but also revealed significant systematic problems in the control and prevention of infectious diseases.

Acknowledgements

The authors express their sincere thanks to Ms. Fatma Rafiq Zakaria, Chairman of Maulana Azad Educational Trust Aurangabad Maharashtra, for her endless encouragement and support and for providing necessary facilities to carry out the above research work.

Abbreviations

Authors’ contributions.

All authors participated in the work substantively and have approved the manuscript as submitted. The authors have no conflict of interest in the study. Drafting the article and critical revision of the article was carried out by SSS. Data collection for the formation of graphical abstract and various figures and tables was also contributed from her end. Conception or design of the work was carried out by SKS. He also contributed to the data collection for lifecycle, history, and origin. Data collection for pathogenesis and comparison of CoVs study was carried out by APJ. Data collection for diagnosis and treatment was carried out by MVKV. Data collection for clinical trials was carried out by DAN. Final approval of the version to be published was done by all the authors’ SSS, APJ, DAN, MVKV, and SKS. All the authors have read and approved the manuscript. Each author has agreed with the publication of the manuscript.

No funding was received for this work

Availability of data and materials

Ethics approval and consent to participate.

Not applicable

Consent for publication

Competing interests.

I, on behalf of all the authors, hereby declare that there is no significant financial, professional, or personal competing interest that might have influenced the performance or presentation of the work described in this manuscript.

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Published: 28 October 2021

Discursive structures and power relations in Covid-19 knowledge production

Mario Bisiada ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0002-3145-1512 1

Humanities and Social Sciences Communications volume 8 , Article number: 248 ( 2021 ) Cite this article

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Cultural and media studies
Language and linguistics

This article critically examines the discourse around the Covid-19 pandemic to investigate the widespread polarisation evident in social media debates. The model of epidemic psychology holds that initial adverse reactions to a new disease spread through linguistic interaction. The main argument is that the mediation of the pandemic through social media has fomented the effects of epidemic psychology in the reaction to the Covid-19 pandemic by providing continued access to commentary and linguistic interaction. This social interaction in the absence of any knowledge on the new disease can be seen as a discourse of knowledge production, conducted largely on social media. This view, coupled with a critical approach to the power relations inherent in all processes of knowledge production, provides an approach to understanding the dynamics of polarisation, which is, arguably, issue-related and not along common ideological lines of left and right. The paper critiques two discursive structures of exclusion, the terms science and conspiracy theory , which have characterised the knowledge production discourse of the Covid-19 pandemic on social media. As strategies of dialogic contraction, they are based on a hegemonic view of knowledge production and on the simplistic assumption of an emancipated position outside ideology. Such an approach, though well-intentioned, may ultimately undermine social movements of knowledge production and thus threaten the very values it aims to protect. Instead, the paper proposes a Foucauldian approach that problematises truth claims and scientificity as always ideological and that is aware of power as inherent to all knowledge production.

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The first truly global, digitally mediated event

The Covid-19 pandemic is the first truly global event:

Not the Black Plague, not the transatlantic slave trade nor the two World Wars, not the 9/11 terrorist attacks have affected everyone, on every continent, as instantly and intimately and acutely as the spread of coronavirus, uniting us as we fear and think and hope about the same thing. (Badhken, 2020 )

While other events of historical magnitude had a global impact, they “were not experienced by the entire world at the same time” (Milanović, 2020 )—though this experience takes a different form for each of us, in terms of both our personal reaction and that of the country we live in. What unites these personal experiences is that they have been largely digital because, apart from being the first truly global event, it is also “the first epidemic in history in which people around the world have been collectively expressing their thoughts and concerns on social media” (Aiello et al., 2021 , p. 1). So our first global event is also the one “where we never met face-to-face in real-time with other people who lived through it” (Milanović, 2020 ).

Social media turned into the prime channel of the public sphere in quarantined societies, and a rigid and noxious polarisation evidently dominates the discourse (European Court of Human Rights, 2021 ; Yang, 2021 ). The question of why a crisis that should unite us in our communal struggle against a virus has produced such a divided society has put the spotlight on social media, which are still commonly assumed to be geared to create polarisation. The banning of @realdonaldtrump from Twitter may be read by future media scholars as to the beginning of an era of control of social media, as the end of Silicon Valley companies’ innocence as mediators of discourse. Since the global communities’ engagement in a fight against information disorder may produce other bans and regulations of free speech on public networks, the discussion of the role of social media as a public sphere will take important turns in the coming years.

In Rosenberg’s ( 1989 , p. 2) terms, as particular societies construct their characteristic responses following dramaturgic forms, epidemics are extraordinary opportunities to gain an “understanding of the relationship among ideology, social structure, and the construction of particular selves”. To understand “our contemporary reaction to a traditional stimulus”, we must distinguish between what is unique and what seems to be universal to pandemic responses (Rosenberg, 1989 , p. 2). This article tries to take the first step towards this goal through a critical approach to the discourse on the Covid-19 pandemic. An aspect unique to this pandemic is that it has been mediated primarily by social media. How this has shaped the response will be subject to extensive study in years to come, and the large amount of language data this has produced will be of great interest to social media discourse analysts. I propose that the mediating role of social media has provided the opportunity to approach the pandemic through the mode of knowledge production practice that is already exhibited by social movements. Contests over this knowledge production, however, led to a polarisation that cannot be explained comprehensively by common partisan affiliations but that should be understood to be interpretative, that is, predominantly issue-related. I argue that this polarisation has caused, and is caused by, among other things, discursive structures of exclusion, specifically through the hegemonic use of terms such as conspiracy theories and science . The following section will begin this argument by introducing the model of epidemic psychology that I adopt to understand our reaction to the Covid-19 pandemic.

Epidemic psychology and the virtual public sphere

Strong ( 1990 ) proposes the “epidemic psychology” model to describe the early reaction to new fatal diseases. He comments on the “striking problems that large, fatal epidemics seem to present to social order; on the waves of fear, panic, stigma, moralising, and calls to action that seem to characterise the immediate reaction” and the “extraordinary emotional maelstrom which seems, at least for a time, to be beyond anyone’s immediate control” (Strong, 1990 , p. 249), descriptions that fit our experience in the first year of the Covid-19 pandemic quite well. Strong sees the capacity of language to enable coordinated action among large groups of people, our “shared intentionality” (Tomasello, 2008 , p. 343), as the key factor in epidemic psychology, making human societies “complex and, though elaborately organised, still potentially subject to fundamental change, simultaneously massively ordered and extraordinarily fragile” (Strong, 1990 , p. 256).

Most social action is based on routine: Strong ( 1990 , p. 257) cites Alfred Schütz’s idea that everyday life is “a matter neither of rationality nor irrationality, but of routine”. Similarly, Berger and Luckmann ( 1966 , p. 172) have argued that “the most important vehicle of reality-maintenance is casual conversation”, which “can afford to be casual precisely because it refers to the routines of a taken-for-granted world. The loss of casualness signals a break in the routines and, at least potentially, a threat to the taken-for-granted reality” (Berger and Luckmann, 1966 , p. 172). Such a threat to routine can lead to “epidemic psychology in which contagious waves of panic rip unpredictably through both individuals and the body politic, disrupting all manner of everyday practices, undermining faith in conventional authority” (Strong, 1990 , p. 257). In sum,

the human origin of epidemic psychology lies not so much in our unruly passions as in the threat of epidemic disease to our everyday assumptions, in the potential fragility of human social structure and interaction, and in the huge diversity and elaboration of human thought, morality and technology; based as all of these are upon words rather than genes. (Strong, 1990 , p. 258).

With language at the heart of epidemic psychology, the threshold at which epidemic psychology sets in may be lower in the digital age due to greater connectedness and thus exposure to language and conversation. The study of language use on social media is thus fundamental to understanding the social processes and transformations that will result from the Covid-19 pandemic. The Internet and social media are by now fundamentally important for all types of linguistic acts including casual conversation and coordinated social action. We produce and receive more language on a daily basis than ever (McCullock, 2019 , p. 2). In Foucauldian terms, social media provides the environment of commentary that keep alive a large amount of discourses which would otherwise disappear (Foucault, 1981 , pp. 56–57), thus creating the impression that particular knowledges are established. If we consider social media “important engines of context collapse, rather than enablers of ideological segregation” (Bruns, 2019 , p. 99), it should come as no surprise that the symptoms of epidemic psychology described by Strong ( 1990 ) set in so quickly and transversally in our societies (see, e.g. Esses and Hamilton, 2021 ; Aiello et al., 2021 ).

Social media use has increased vastly during the Covid-19 pandemic (Nguyen et al., 2020 ), and it is the connectedness through social media that makes this pandemic unlike any other (Aiello et al., 2021 ; Madrigal, 2020 ; Tsao et al., 2021 ). The possibility to experience it in a socially distanced way is afforded to us only by our digitalised world. As Harari ( 2021 ) observes, “[i]n 1918, […] if you ordered the entire population of a country to stay at home for several weeks, it would have resulted in economic ruin, social breakdown and mass starvation. In contrast, in 2020, […] automation and the Internet made extended lockdowns viable, at least in developed countries”. How viable they are in terms of long-term effects remains to be seen, and, as Harari ( 2021 ) rightfully notes, even this digital world could not function without “the crucial role that many low-paid professions play in maintaining human civilisation: nurses, sanitation workers, truck drivers, cashiers, delivery people”. Given this fundamental importance of digital access, the #StayHome narratives of lockdown life have been particularly developed-world, digitalised, middle class, childless narratives. But the key point is that “after 2020, we know that life can go on even when an entire country is in physical lockdown” (Harari, 2021 ).

How will this new importance of social media affect society? Whether virtual public spaces also constitute a virtual public sphere has long been discussed (for an overview, see Bruns and Highfield, 2016 ). While using social media empowers users by broadcasting their opinions more widely, “the same anonymity and absence of face-to-face interaction that expands our freedom of expression online keeps us from assessing the impact and social value of our words” (Papacharissi, 2002 , p. 16). In fact, this sense of empowerment may misrepresent the true impact of our opinions (Papacharissi, 2002 , p. 17) and also of those held by others: Because a few vocal users can create a lot of activity, browsing social media may give us a distorted view of society, making it appear more polarised than it actually is.

A case in point is the (now deleted) Twitter thread that made Eric Feigl-Ding famous: He summarised a paper about the new coronavirus with the words “HOLY MOTHER OF GOD—the new coronavirus is a 3.8!!!” and called this infectiousness “thermonuclear pandemic level bad” (24 January 2020). In a response thread on Twitter, science writer Ferris Jabr shows that Feigl-Ding’s thread “missed essential context and contains numerous errors” and argues that his “claim that ‘we are now faced with the most virulent virus epidemic the world has ever seen’ and that the new coronavirus is 8x as infectious as SARS is completely untrue” ( https://twitter.com/ferrisjabr/status/1220963553911271424 ). Feigl-Ding’s viral thread thus

exemplified a deep problem on Twitter: The most extreme statements can be far more amplified than more measured messages. In the information sphere, while public-health researchers are doing their best to distribute scientific evidence, viral Twitter threads, context-free videos, and even conspiracy theories are reaching far more people. (Madrigal, 2020 )

Some argue, however, that it’s exactly this recognition of constant evolution that should inform modern science, that Feigl-Ding has just understood how social media work and “committed the unpardonable sin of failing to act on Twitter like enough of a scientist—you know, terrified of getting something wrong, because science never does ” (Science+Story, 2020 ). As social media come under increasing pressure through debates over misinformation, one task the pandemic sets us is to work towards a virtual public sphere that goes beyond the imagined communities (Anderson, 1983 ) or virtual spheres “consist[ing] of several spheres of counterpublics that have been excluded from mainstream political discourse, yet employ virtual communication to restructure the mainstream that ousted them” (Papacharissi, 2002 , p. 21).

Most theorisations on the virtual public sphere consider it in conjunction with the non-virtual sphere. The new situation we face now is the temporary quasi-disappearance of physical interactions. As I have argued in this section, while epidemic psychology had been constrained in previous pandemics by the sheer absence of contact, it is now able to continue unchecked, simply because a lockdown no longer keeps us from conversing with the world. The public sphere has been forcibly moved into the virtual space, for a short yet decisive amount of time: Public shaming of “irresponsible” people, insults (“Covidiot”), dubious model predictions and all the other effects of epidemic psychology could be observed. This, as I argue in the following section, has made the Covid-19 pandemic a phenomenon of communal knowledge production practice.

The Covid-19 pandemic as process of knowledge production

The Covid-19 pandemic is a unique phenomenon of knowledge production practice in the history of humanity because the phenomena of epidemic psychology described by Strong ( 1990 ) are for the first time mediated by a global network, that is, social media. The knowledge production in the Covid-19 pandemic resembles, in an accelerated form, that of climate change. Our first global event also gave us the opportunity to learn together, in real time, across the globe. Social media turn not only politics from a closed space into “a conversation that can be joined by outsiders” (Ausserhofer and Maireder, 2013 , p. 306), but also science, by way of knowledge production practices. There has long been a discussion in the philosophy of science on how knowledge gets subsumed into “scientism”, defined as “the conviction that we can no longer understand science as one form of possible knowledge, but rather must identify knowledge with science” (Habermas, 1972 , p. 4). The Covid-19 pandemic has placed science along with its hegemonies in the spotlight of society, and it is thus informative to reflect on the relation between science and knowledge.

As a response to public fear, the Covid-19 pandemic has followed the model of epidemic psychology in generating an “exceptionally volatile intellectual state” (Strong, 1990 , p. 254), as little is known about the new disease (Davey Smith et al., 2020 ) and there was uncertainty about whether “a new disease or a new outbreak is trivial or whether it is really something enormously important”, leading to “collective disorientation” (Strong, 1990 , p. 254). This volatile intellectual state and disorientation have created discourses of knowledge production (Casas-Cortés et al., 2008 ; Della Porta and Pavan, 2017 ; Pavan and Felicetti, 2019 ), defined as “practices through which local and highly personal experiences, rationalities, and competences get connected and coordinated within shared cognitive systems which, in turn, provide movements and their supporters with a common orientation for making claims and acting collectively” (Pavan and Felicetti, 2019 , p. 3).

Such practices create what Foucault ( 1980 ) calls local, subjugated knowledges, defined as an “autonomous, non-centralised kind of theoretical production, one that is to say whose validity is not dependent on the approval of the established regimes of thought” (Foucault, 1980 , p. 81). While such theoretical production consists of “local, discontinuous, disqualified, illegitimate knowledges”, it does not constitute a right to ignorance or non-knowledge: it is opposed “not to the contents, methods or concepts of a science, but to the effects of the centralising powers which are linked to the institution and functioning of an organised scientific discourse” (Foucault, 1980 , p. 84). More recently, Fischer ( 2000 ) has shown how local contextual knowledge by citizens can help solve complex social and environmental problems. One example of these from the current pandemic are mutual aid groups (Engler, 2020 ; Mahanty and Phillipps, 2020 ; Sitrin and Colectiva Sembrar, 2020 ). However, the often centralising, heavy-handed or even authoritarian responses of governments, coupled with blanket policies that reflected little trust in the intelligence or autonomy of its citizens, hindered such knowledge production movements. Citizens were delegated to a passive role while a selected group of experts led the response, which mirrors the dynamics experienced by environmental movements (Fischer, 2000 , pp. 92–93).

A ready response to this volatile intellectual state tends to be that educated citizens should trust in science and condemn those who believe conspiracy theories, who spread fake news, who usher in an era of post-truth. Such a response, however, is often undergirded by a simplistic understanding of ideology, by the idea that we can and must somehow combat ideology and promote scientific truth through critical scrutiny of language and discourse in the media. Foucault criticised the usefulness of the notion of ideology for the fact that it “always stands in virtual opposition to something else which is supposed to count as truth” (Foucault, 1980 , p. 180). Rather than exploring a knowable reality, scientific enquiry has been described as constructive practice, that is, “oriented toward ‘making things work’ successfully and embedded in a reality which is highly artificial and essentially self-created” (Knorr-Cetina, 1977 , p. 670). In other words, assuming some kind of “false consciousness” within ideology presupposes the existence of a “consciousness which is not false (the position of critique)” (Mills, 2004 , p. 29), but such a position does not exist: “All knowledge is determined by a combination of social, institutional and discursive pressures” (Mills, 2004 , p. 30).

The dominating theoretical approaches to critical discourse studies hold that, through an awareness of linguistic/ideological oppression based on neo-Marxist or rationalist analysis, people are empowered to bring about social change and thus achieve emancipation (Hart and Cap, 2014 , p. 2). While this is a useful approach to studying language and social change, Pennycook ( 2001 , pp. 36–41) criticises such “emancipatory modernist” approaches as potentially patronising and argues that they lack the means to respond to the awareness of ideological oppression. Emancipatory modernist approaches to discourse are often grounded in a simplistic view of ideology juxtaposed with some “knowable reality” and hold the problematic notion that “scientific knowledge of reality can help us escape from the falsity of ideology” (Pennycook, 2001 , p. 41), a rationale that is itself often used by populist agitators (Bruns, 2019 , p. 114). Messianic attempts to help people see the light often fail, overlooking that many discourse practices aim to “explore others’ reaction to one’s identity and have it confirmed in interactions, including hostile reactions that confirm one’s status as a critical outsider” (Krämer, 2017 , p. 1302), thus cementing the very status one seeks to challenge into an emancipated position of its own. When studying epidemic psychology and the uncertain intellectual state it produces, it is thus more important than ever to remember that all language is political (Gee, 2011 , p. 10), all knowledge production is ideological and there is no truth or knowledge outside ideology (Pennycook, 2001 , p. 89).

As is the case with climate action, science’s indeterminacy, its raising more questions than it could answer, has led to its politicisation (Fischer, 2000 , p. 95). My argument in this section has been that, in the volatile intellectual state the Covid-19 pandemic has caused, the hegemonies of knowledge production, while always existing below the surface, have been made exceptionally visible. The restlessness of hypermediativity, fuelled by a constant generation and availability of data, allowed everyone to conduct “fact-based” statistical analyses and share them, around the clock. The fast exchange through social media and the way it empowers users to broadcast opinions and knowledge to wide audiences have caused a politicisation and polarisation of scientific debates (Clarke, 2020 ; Bhopal and Munro, 2021 ). In the context of the Covid-19 pandemic as a process of knowledge production, it is necessary to differentiate the concept of polarisation a bit further, as I will do in the next section.

Interpretative polarisation

In this paper, I understand polarisation as a dynamic phenomenon, driven by “interpretative” polarisation, “the process wherein different groups in a society contextualise a common topic in starkly different ways” so that “frames used by one camp are deemed unfounded, inappropriate, or illegitimate by other camps” (Kligler-Vilenchik et al., 2020 , p. 2). Social media are so rooted in our daily lives that they receive attention from a range of disciplines, and many commentators still purport that social media “foster extreme viewpoints by design” (Bhopal and Munro, 2021 ) and are thus inherently geared to produce polarisation.

A range of evidence argues against this deterministic view, however. In a review of a range of studies, Tucker et al. ( 2018 , pp. 15–16) argue that “[t]he consumption of political information through social media increases cross-cutting exposure, which has a range of positive effects on civic engagement, political moderation, and the quality of democratic politics, but also facilitates the spread of misinformation”. Bruns ( 2019 ) has cast doubt on Pariser’s ( 2011 ) concept of the “filter bubble”, and the popular idea that social bots on Twitter “pretend to be a human user and [are] operated by some sinister actor to manipulate public opinion” seems unfounded according to recent research (Gallwitz and Kreil, 2021 ). Frequent use of ever more available social media diversifies individuals’ networks, which may alleviate concerns about echo chambers on social media (Lee et al., 2014 ), though may not necessarily “create more informed citizens” (Papacharissi, 2002 , p. 15), or a public sphere as such: While social media use “may reduce ideological polarisation as a result of leading to higher cross-cutting exposure, it may simultaneously increase affective polarisation because of the negative nature of these interactions” (Tucker et al., 2018 , p. 21), of which the Covid-19 pandemic has provided many.

In the absence of knowledge on the disease, the reactions to the Covid-19 pandemic subverted the established ideological standpoints. The range of ideological persuasions observed at anti-lockdown protests and the fact that liberal thinkers argue for closed borders while conservative thinkers question night-time curfews and police presence shows that the conflict cannot be thought along the usual partisan lines. Research on polarisation has argued for the recognition of various dimensions of opinion polarisation: Where new issues arise, people are prepared to deviate from their regular partisan or ideological direction (Wojcieszak and Rojas, 2011 ). Studies suggest that partisan/ideological affiliation is not as directly influenced by knowledge as issue-related opinions:

[K]nowledge is found to predict the variance of two issue-related measures of polarisation, whereas there is no such association between knowledge and partisan/ideological polarisation. This is consistent with previous research that the more knowledgeable are likely to move to more extreme issue positions by counter arguing claims incompatible with their political predisposition. (Lee et al., 2014 , pp. 716–717)

People evaluate objects that they encounter frequently along different lines to rare but impactful objects: differing findings for party/ideology and issue-related polarisation suggest that the underlying mechanism of partisan and ideological polarisation is distinct from that of issue-related processes (Tucker et al., 2018 , pp. 40–48). This recognition shows that studies or surveys linking attitudes towards the Covid-19 pandemic to partisan affiliations are not entirely informative.

In a study of how citizens evaluate arguments about contested issues, Taber and Lodge ( 2006 ) find that prior attitudes decisively guide how new information is processed:

Far from the rational calculator portrayed in enlightenment prose and spatial equations, homo politicus would seem to be a creature of simple likes and prejudices that are quite resistant to change. […] Skepticism is valuable and attitudes should have inertia. But skepticism becomes bias when it becomes unreasonably resistant to change and especially when it leads one to avoid information as with the confirmation bias. (Taber and Lodge, 2006 , pp. 767–768)

The “boundary line between rational skepticism and irrational bias” (Taber and Lodge, 2006 , p. 768) is a key issue in discussions about the Covid-19 pandemic, and one that can perhaps not be established in a normative way.

To address the question of why a newly arisen issue that could not be addressed by existing political schemes has polarised society so quickly, we may argue, then, that different contextualisations of the same issue have produced different evaluations in people (Kligler-Vilenchik et al., 2020 ). While people can generally process multiple frames and evaluate different angles, this ability may be hampered where “competing groups rely exclusively on contrasting frames and reject (or are unaware of) those frames underlying divergent preferences”, which may lead to “contrasting interpretations that sustain irreconcilable positions”. It is this configuration that, I argue, leads to interpretative polarisation, which may make “meaningful conversation between groups almost impossible” (Kligler-Vilenchik et al., 2020 , p. 2) and reinforce political polarisation.

Examples of such contrasting interpretations abound. The term lockdown has had differing definitions in each country, which led to shadings such as hard/soft lockdown . The term new normal was perhaps meant to anchor hygiene measures in people’s thoughts, but is seen by many as an attempt to normalise draconian restrictions and situations that are clearly anything but normal. The dichotomy of health vs economy is another example of how the same issue can be presented in different lights, depending on the angle one takes.

Interpretative polarisation can explain why partisan analysis does not apply to the Covid-19 pandemic as an extraordinary phenomenon whose epidemic psychology, as I have argued so far, made necessary new reflections, a process of knowledge production. The Covid-19 pandemic challenges existing ideological boundaries, so an analysis of its discourse requires an approach that goes beyond seeing ideology as a given structural object and instead analyses hegemonies and power struggles inherent in all discourses of knowledge production.

Discursive structures of exclusion

Exclusion through dialogic contraction.

An oft-repeated charge in debates on the Covid-19 pandemic is that particular voices or opinions have been ignored or excluded from the debate, that particular things cannot be said. This is then countered by the reminder that there is free speech, that anyone can publish anything after all. Both positions forget that discourses are generally considered to be “principally organised around practices of exclusion” (Mills, 2004 , p. 11): Any notion of what seems natural to say or what seems unsayable is the result of such exclusion practices, of “battles ‘for truth’” where, in the words of Foucault, “by truth I do not mean ‘the ensemble of truths which are to be discovered and accepted’, but rather ‘the ensemble of rules according to which the true and the false are separated and specific effects of power attached to the true’” (Foucault, 1980 , p. 132).

Foucault ( 1981 , pp. 52–54) proposes three procedures of exclusion: prohibition, the division of reason/madness and the opposition between true/false (the “will to truth”). The argument that nobody is excluded because everyone is free to publish anything misunderstands practices of discursive exclusion by reducing them to the first of those principles (prohibition) while ignoring the existence of the other two. Based on Bakhtin’s concept of “centripetal-centrifugal struggle”, Baxter ( 2011 ) argues that, as it is “difficult to presume that all discourses are equal in the play for meaning, […] competing discourses are not equally legitimated. Some are centred (the centripetal) and others are marginalised (centrifugal). In the instance of monologue, all but a single totalising discourse is erased” (Baxter, 2011 , p. 14). Thus, the struggles of exclusion are regular phenomena of hegemony in discourse, made visible through the extraordinary process of knowledge generation. The fact that free speech is constrained and certain things become dominant in discourses while others become unsayable is a product of competing power relations in a discourse (see Mills, 2004 , p. 64). These power relations, as usual in Foucauldian thought, are not inherently negative or positive, but potentially dangerous if not questioned, which is the aim of this section.

In what follows, I investigate two discursive structures of exclusion via dialogic contraction that originate in the emancipatory modernist approach to ideology in discourse identified above: First, the reference to an abstract authority ( the science ) and second, accusations of conspiracy theories . I understand dialogic contraction with reference to Bakhtinian dialogism (for an introduction, see Robinson, 2011 ) as used in various theories of discourse analysis such as Appraisal Theory (Martin and White, 2005 ) and Relational Dialectics Theory. In the latter, discourses (defined roughly as systems of meaning or “voices”) compete in discursive struggle, on a cline between monologic and idealised dialogic (Baxter, 2011 ). While in idealised dialogism all discourses are given equal weight, monologism consists of “a discursive playing field so unequal that all but one monologic, authoritative discourse is silenced” (Baxter, 2011 , p. 9). This model is useful for analysing the discourse on the Covid-19 pandemic because it reflects the accusation that the public debate has increasingly become monologic, with the authoritative discourse of the respective political leaders and their close circles of experts in the dominant position.

One of the first demands on social media at the beginning of the pandemic was that people should be quiet and “let experts talk”. These calls were meant to reduce noise in the discourse, a defence mechanism to the heated reactions in the networks, in line with early reactions of epidemic psychology. They were initial reactionary attempts to exclude voices from commenting on what was from the beginning a complex social crisis that concerns everyone. Attempts to restrict the discourse to “experts” only later crystallised into the two frequent formulas that we should follow the science and that we must combat conspiracy theories .

This simplistic binary choice juxtaposing the science/experts/evidence with conspiracy theories/fake news is at the heart of the dialogic contraction in the Covid-19 pandemic. It makes it seem as though the only available positions are either to believe Covid-19 to be a global threat that eclipses all other threats or to deny its existence altogether, thus mirroring labellings used in the climate debate, which “isolate, exclude, ignore, and dismiss claim-makers of all types from constructive dialogue” (Howarth and Sharman, 2015 , p. 239).

These strategies of dialogic contraction work by appealing to taken-for-granted truths (science is good, populism is bad) and to an imagined neutral position outside ideology, power and discourse. This position is workable in routine debates, where challenges are either confined to academic circles or addressed by societies’ “general politics of truth” (Foucault, 1980 , p. 131). In an epistemologically disruptive event such as the Covid-19 pandemic, however, as I argue in this article, the role of science in the public enters the spotlight, epistemic psychology challenges our established routines, and discursive structures of dialogic contraction towards a monologic extreme rapidly translate into social polarisation.

Critical approaches to discourse that are conscious of and able to consider power relations as they emerge from discursive practice thus seem better suited to study our present situation. To study language with the aim of explaining power rather than just reveal it, we must show how power operates in discourses rather than how it is held by particular, pre-categorised actors or institutions (Pennycook, 2001 , p. 93). As Katsambekis and Stavrakakis ( 2020 ) argue:

In many cases, understanding the policies of certain actors through the lens of ‘populism’ […] and the vague notion of a ‘populist threat to democracy’, often adopted in typical anti-populist discourses, seems to be diverting attention from other imminent dangers to democracy, most importantly: nativism, nationalism, authoritarianism, racism. (Katsambekis and Stavrakakis, 2020 , p. 7)

Having established discursive structures of exclusion as inherent to all discourse, I now discuss two strategies of dialogic contraction that I consider to be fundamental to the polarisation that we have seen in this pandemic and that let us answer why a global health crisis and the knowledge production that ensued, where we are all on the same side, has become such a polarising topic.

The science as legitimating authority

A central claim made by most leaders throughout the Covid-19 pandemic has been that they “follow the science” (Pérez-González, 2020b ; Stevens, 2020 ; Pierce, 2021 ). In his first prime-time address to the nation on 11 March, Joe Biden said, “we know what we need to do to beat this virus. Tell the truth. Follow the scientists and the science”. What is unclear about such statements is what exactly “the science” refers to. Sweden, under Anders Tegnell’s advice, also “follows the science”, and the rate of agreement of the Swedish scientific community, when asked whether scientific advice had been taken into account, does not differ from that reported for other countries (Rijs and Fenter, 2020 ). Yet the Swedish approach, generally described as at best “unorthodox”, differs radically to that of many other countries, and mentioning “Sweden” in a current social network discussion is a safe way of being delegitimised as a reasonable discourse actor (Torjesen, 2021 ).

This suggests that the reductive notion of the science , like the similar formula the evidence (see Furedi, 2020 ), is defined based on particular principles of authority, established, though not overtly specified, by dominant discourse actors. It disclaims the multivoicedness, interdisciplinarity and plurality of processes of knowledge production (Knorr-Cetina, 1999 ) and serves as a discursive strategy of dialogic contraction, an expression of discursive hegemony: “The debate becomes polarised and binary: if the science says yes to face coverings, then challenging the orthodoxy or even questioning its universality becomes heretical” (Martin et al., 2020 , p. 506).

Taylor ( 2010 ) conducts a corpus-assisted study of the use of the term the science in UK press articles between 1993 and 2008. Referring to Aristotle’s model of rhetoric and argumentation, she argues that science , instead of being used as part of logos, providing logical proof, “is increasingly used as a part of ethos, that is, persuasion at the interpersonal level”, projecting a particular stance towards the audience and appealing to an unspecified or unexplained authority, “making the writer’s personal character appear more credible by enroling ‘science’ on their side of an argument” (Taylor, 2010 , p. 222). This is especially the case where authors “refer to some unspecified, autonomous, authoritative entity” such as the science (Taylor, 2010 , p. 236). These findings are echoed by Pérez-González’s ( 2020a , p. 13) study of a corpus of a wide range of climate change blogs, where bloggers attempt to construct authoritative voices of consensus by using the the science formula.

While scientific discourse in general is rarely characterised by consensus, it is much less so in the context of the Covid-19 pandemic. A review of studies shows that a lot of research on the issue has been biased or of low quality (Raynaud et al., 2021 ). Critiques of bias in the acceptation and rejection of evidence have long existed (Stevens, 2007 ) and are echoed in a cross-country report on populism in the Covid-19 pandemic:

“Experts” are not neutral actors that will save liberal democracy from “bad populists”. […] [T]he pandemic has rather revealed the deeply political character of scientific input in critical junctures as well as the very political agency of experts themselves. […] It becomes apparent then that exactly as populists do not form a coherent bloc in the pandemic, experts too cannot be treated as a unified front, thus the dichotomy “ experts vs populists” is exposed as fundamentally flawed once more in the context of the ongoing crisis. (Katsambekis and Stavrakakis, 2020 , pp. 7–8)

Many righteous approaches to the Covid-19 pandemic, but also to the climate emergency, succeed in identifying ideologically motivated harmful practices, but succumb to the emancipatory modernist lack of self-reflexivity on whether its messages, which are meant to convince the targeted audience, do not just patronise it, as discussed above. Populists will respond to this not by accepting that they are wrong, but by rejecting the entire frame of knowledge: “We’ll probably also start to hear calls for climate lockdowns. I know, right now that sounds completely preposterous, but don’t these kooky ideas always find a way to bleed into the mainstream? […] Don’t worry though, they’re just following the science ” (Miller, 2021 ).

It is understandable to want to reinforce a society that bases its actions on informed opinion, especially in the age of Trumpism. However, it is the very reductionism of an approach that makes an unspecified truth-claim to the science and disqualifies everything else as unreasonable that allows populist actors like Trump to gain power by turning the same simple strategy on its head. The postmodernist challenges of a simplified, messianic notion of the science remain valid. The formula represents a simplistic and hegemonic view of what “science” is and threatens to turn it into a buzzword of discursive exclusion and disciplining, undermining equal engagement in knowledge production.

Conspiracy theory as a sanctioning device

The second structure of exclusion I discuss is the term conspiracy theory . Husting and Orr ( 2007 ) critique this term as a metadiscursive “vocabulary of motive in struggles over the meaning of social and political worlds, events, and ideas” ( 2007 , p. 132). In simple terms, its use signifies a discursive move of “going meta”, that is, “elect[ing] to step back from the immediacy of a question to question the questioner’s motives, or tone, or premises, or right to ask certain questions, or right to ask any questions at all” (Simons, 1994 , p. 470). Invoking the label conspiracy theory thus has the function of “shifting the focus of discourse to reframe another’s claims as unwarranted or unworthy of full consideration” (Husting and Orr, 2007 , p. 129). While research has put into question whether applying the label has any negative effect on the targeted actor’s beliefs (Wood, 2016 ), the accusation of conspiracy theory seeks to discursively expel actors from the community of reasonable interlocutors, thus “protecting certain decisions and people from question in arenas of political, cultural, and scholarly knowledge construction” (Husting and Orr, 2007 , p. 130) by reverting the focus of attention onto the questioner.

This discursive structure is often used in “cultures of fear” that “generate new mechanisms of social control” (Husting and Orr, 2007 , p. 128). Considering that many European countries are still in constant alert mode from terrorism, the description of such a culture fits the past year quite well:

fear and threat become the means for media, politicians, and corporations to sell commodities, buy votes, and justify policies reducing civil rights and promoting war (Altheide, 2000 ). As a mythos of consensus has turned into a mythos of fear, we would expect to find new interactional mechanisms to shield authority and legitimacy from challenge or accountability. (Husting and Orr, 2007 , p. 130)

More recently, Husting ( 2018 ) identifies two problems with current academic and journalist discourse around conspiracy. First, a cognitive approach, which “attempts to diagnose traits like character and intelligence, intent on identifying hidden, usually individualised causes of constructing, believing in, and circulating conspiracy theories” (Husting, 2018 , p. 111). By psychologising the subjects of its analysis in this way, “it misses the political work done by the labels themselves” and overstates their coherence to argue for their danger to society (Husting, 2018 , p. 112). Husting argues that this cognitive analysis expresses a neoliberal responsibilisation of the individual in various ways to “follow expert advice to optimise well-being and health of body, mind, and polis” (Husting, 2018 , p. 113). As citizens, we “regulate ourselves by regulating, judging, and contemning others, and keeping our own thoughts and styles of reason and emotion clear” (Husting, 2018 , p. 123). The disputes over truth, falsity and conspiracy theories thus “serve to construct, circulate, and enact a ‘well-tempered’ citizen in liberal politics” (Husting, 2018 , p. 113).

The second problem Husting ( 2018 ) identifies with current conspiracy theory discourse is its affective register. According to dominant analyses, conspiracy theorists “step out of the sphere of reason and logic, and enter the terrain of the emotional and the psychotic” (Husting, 2018 , p. 117). Yet conspiracy discourse is itself “a form of emotional and political engagement driven by contempt and laced with anger and fear” by policing the boundaries of reasonable political doubt and theorising an “uncorrupted democratic sphere” (Husting, 2018 , p. 117) outside ideology. By constructing conspiracy theories as threats to the order of the state and to the uncorrupted citizen, conspiracy theory discourse falls victim to the same pseudo-messianic discursive approach it seeks to unravel.

In a study of Wikipedia edits of the article on the German word for conspiracy theory, Verschwörungstheorie , Vogel ( 2018 ) argues that the term is not used with a descriptive, analytical function, but is part of an established metadiscursive accusatory, stigmatising and disciplinary pattern to sanction views from a position or epistemology outside the collectivism and the “sayable” in the ingroup, whose validity is assumed to be taken for granted (Vogel, 2018 , p. 281). As Husting ( 2018 , p. 120) says, “[o]nce the label ‘conspiracy theory’ sticks to someone, it impugns their intellectual and moral competence and relieves hearers of the need to consider the validity of her or his claims”. The use of the term, thus, lacks a problematisation of one’s own supposed neutrality. Its use is hegemonic, not analytical.

Vogel ( 2018 ) studies Wikipedia discourse specifically, but his observations are transferable to general social media discourse. And in the pandemic knowledge production, the epistemological conditions and power relations among participants within such knowledge production movements (Esteves, 2008 ) are comparable. Due to the shift of the public sphere into the digital as discussed above, most people will have experienced debates in online worlds along with everything this entails.

In a comprehensive survey of the usage of conspiracy theory , Butter ( 2018 ) writes that, while the Internet and social media have made conspiracy theories more visible and fast-moving, they are no more frequent or influential than they used to be because they are still regarded as “stigmatised knowledge”. In the wake of the current surge of populism combined with the fragmentation of society through the Internet, Butter ( 2018 , p. 18) argues, the fragmented public sphere and the different notions of truth condition the current debate in which some are afraid again of conspiracies while others are still worried about the fatal effects of conspiracy theories. The dialogic contraction we are arguably seeing can thus be traced to a particular constellation of fears for the public sphere combined with the fear of the pandemic.

In sum, value-laden terms such as conspiracy theory are attempts to exercise discursive power over others by excluding them from being reasonable participants in the debate, both in everyday interactions by users and in official government acts. Mechanisms that define limits of the sayable “weaken public spaces that are central for interaction, contest, and deliberation: the spaces where we define our world” (Husting and Orr, 2007 , p. 147).

In this section, I have discussed two structures of exclusion by dialogic contraction: the science and conspiracy theory . These are common terms in everyday discourse, but, as I have shown, their appropriateness for academic study and debate is questionable due to their hegemonic nature and unreflected reference to accepted and sanctioned knowledge. This is not to say, of course, that we should endorse conspiracy theories or reject science. The aim is rather to become aware of how all types of knowledge are related to power. I am not interested here in evaluating the veracity of particular discourses on the Covid-19 pandemic (cf. Husting and Orr, 2007 , p. 131), or even in whether conspiracy theories are dangerous or not, but in the mechanisms whereby one discourse becomes considered dominant and thus supported by financial and social capital whereas the other becomes confined to the margins of society (Mills, 2004 , p. 17).

In this paper, I have adopted the model of epidemic psychology, which functions fundamentally through linguistic interaction, and argued that social media use has fomented its effects in the reaction to the Covid-19 pandemic by providing sustained access to commentary and linguistic interaction. I have suggested that this social interaction in a context of a volatile intellectual state can be seen as a discourse of knowledge production, conducted largely on social media. This view, along with the power relations it implies, provides an approach to understanding the dynamics of polarisation as interpretative, outside established partisan lines. To understand the polarisation better, I have discussed two discursive structures of exclusion, the terms the science and conspiracy theory , which have characterised the knowledge production discourse of the Covid-19 pandemic on social media. I have argued that these are strategies of dialogic contraction which are based on a hegemonic view of knowledge and a simplistic view of ideology based in the emancipatory modernist view of language that represents the currently dominant form of discourse analysis.

With this line of argument, I have intended to make sense of the Covid-19 pandemic discourse and take a step towards understanding the polarisation in our societies. As I have argued, this polarisation is due to discourse practices and not attributable to social media technology. The Covid-19 pandemic has forced us to reflect on many things, not just ourselves, but also the way we study society and (means of) communication. A great amount of data is being collected (see, e.g. Chen et al., 2020 ) and many studies will investigate the role of language and social media in the social transformation we are going to see in the coming years. I hope that the literature review conducted in this article has contributed some reflections on pertinent concepts and possible methodologies, or at least heuristics, for these future studies to consider.

From the perspective of discourse studies, I have endorsed the practice of Critical Applied Linguistics (Pennycook, 2001 ), which identifies both strengths and weaknesses of current approaches to discourse and seeks to improve on them by a greater foundation in critical theory and by a series of paradigmatic characteristics to problematise practice. Arguments are to be sought in texts, not in author profiles, so constructing corpora of texts harvested in “conspiracy theory” or “anti-vaxxer” forums or that consist of “fake news” means starting from a value position, a truth claim that can only confirm ideologies we already look for, but hardly explain their working in society. As Butter and Knight ( 2016 , p. 23) argue, “the aim of producing empirical, value-neutral research on the phenomenon of ‘conspiracy theory’ is misguided, because the term itself is not value-neutral”.

Categories such as “class”, “gender”, but also “identity” are often assumed to “exist prior to language”, to be reflected in language use, when really they need to be explained themselves, with language being a part of this explanation (Cameron, 1995 , p. 15). Like other conflicts, the polarisation in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic has unveiled “the processes of norm-making and norm-breaking, bringing into the open the arguments that surround rules […] and how unquestioned (‘conventional’) ways of behaving are implicitly understood by social actors” (Cameron, 1995 , p. 17). It is this kind of processes that should be studied from a self-reflexive position that is aware of its own subjection to ideology and power relations.

A promising approach might be found in the Critical Disinformation Studies syllabus (Marwick et al., 2021 ), which argues, among other things, that fake news do not originate in extremism, but that “strategic disinformation and its cousin ‘propaganda’ are state and media industry practices with very long histories”, so instead of “plac[ing] the responsibility on individuals to become better consumers of media”, this approach seeks to “foreground questions of power, institutions, and economic, social, cultural, and technological structures as they shape disinformation”. Research shows that greater public awareness of how science communication works increases the acceptance of scientific findings regardless of partisan ideologies (Weisberg et al., 2021 ).

The process of knowledge production on social media I envision in this paper in many ways resembles what is taking place in climate action and environmentalism (Pérez-González, 2020a ). One might counter that the pandemic response cannot be called a social movement, but has been more of an emergency response to a problem that was always short-lived, and much more fast-paced than climate change, so is not perfectly comparable. But the knowledge production conducted on social media, and some of the movements born from this (see Sitrin and Colectiva Sembrar, 2020 ), provides a blueprint for environmentalism, a social movement that could benefit from the same kind of knowledge-practice. Some see the Covid-19 pandemic as a “test run” for the climate emergency, as there is hope “that the great mobilisations of state resources currently being unspooled to address Covid-19 prove the possibility of a comparable or greater mobilisation against ecological catastrophe” (Clover, 2021 , p. S28). Nevertheless, the climate emergency has only recently been labelled thus and its perceived and mediatised urgency does not match that of Covid-19, though of course its destructive potential is far greater. The debate on science and knowledge in our societies and the ways in which these discourses are structured and mediated in social networks are thus of prime importance.

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This work is part of the project Frames and narratives of translation and of migration in Europe , funded by the Spanish Ministry for Science, Innovation and Universities (MCIU) and the Agencia Estatal de Investigación (AEI), with grant number PID2019-107971GA-I00.

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Bisiada, M. Discursive structures and power relations in Covid-19 knowledge production. Humanit Soc Sci Commun 8 , 248 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1057/s41599-021-00935-2

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Remarks by President Biden on the Anniversary of the COVID- ⁠ 19 Shutdown

8:01 P.M. EST

THE PRESIDENT: Good evening, my fellow Americans.

Tonight, I’d like to talk to you about where we are as we mark one year since everything stopped because of this pandemic.

A year ago, we were hit with a virus that was met with silence and spread unchecked.

Denials for days, weeks, then months that led to more deaths, more infections, more stress, and more loneliness.

Photos and videos from 2019 feel like they were taken in another era. The last vacation. The last birthday with friends. The last holiday with the extended family.

While it was different for everyone, we all lost something.

A collective suffering. A collective sacrifice. A year filled with the loss of life — and the loss of living for all of us.

But, in the loss, we saw how much there was to gain in appreciation, respect, and gratitude.

Finding light in the darkness is a very American thing to do. In fact, it may be the most American thing we do.

And that’s what we’ve done.

We’ve seen frontline and essential workers risking their lives — sometimes losing them — to save and help others. Researchers and scientists racing for a vaccine. And so many of you, as Hemingway wrote, being strong in all the broken places.

I know it’s been hard. I truly know.

As I’ve told you before, I carry a card in my pocket with the number of Americans who have died from COVID to date. It’s on the back of my schedule. As of now, the total deaths in America: 527,726. That’s more deaths than in World War One, World War Two, the Vietnam War, and 9/11 combined.

They were husbands, wives, sons and daughters, grandparents, friends, neighbors — young and old. They leave behind loved ones unable to truly grieve or to heal, even to have a funeral.

But I’m also thinking about everyone else who lost this past year to natural causes, by cruel fate of accident, or other diseases. They, too, died alone. They, too, leave loved ones behind who are hurting badly.

You know, you’ve often heard me say before, I talk about the longest walk any parent can make is up a short flight of stairs to his child’s bedroom to say, “I’m sorry. I lost my job. We can’t be here anymore.” Like my Dad told me when he lost his job in Scranton.

So many of you have had to make that same walk this past year.

You lost your job. You closed your business. Facing eviction, homelessness, hunger, a loss of control, and, maybe worst of all, a loss of hope.

Watching a generation of children who may be set back up to a year or more — because they’ve not been in school — because of their loss of learning.

It’s the details of life that matter most, and we’ve missed those details.

The big details and small moments.

Weddings, birthdays, graduations — all the things that needed to happen but didn’t. The first date. The family reunions. The Sunday night rituals.

It’s all has exacted a terrible cost on the psyche of so many of us. For we are fundamentally a people who want to be with others — to talk, to laugh, to hug, to hold one another.

But this virus has kept us apart.

Grandparents haven’t seen their children or grandchildren. Parents haven’t seen their kids. Kids haven’t seen their friends.

The things we used to do that always filled us with joy have become the things we couldn’t do and broke our hearts.

Too often, we’ve turned against one another.

A mask — the easiest thing to do to save lives — sometimes it divides us.

States pitted against one other instead of working with each other.

Vicious hate crimes against Asian Americans, who have been attacked, harassed, blamed, and scapegoated. At this very moment, so many of them — our fellow Americans — they’re on the frontlines of this pandemic, trying to save lives, and still — still — they are forced to live in fear for their lives just walking down streets in America. It’s wrong, it’s un-American, and it must stop.

Look, we know what we need to do to beat this virus: Tell the truth. Follow the scientists and the science. Work together. Put trust and faith in our government to fulfill its most important function, which is protecting the American people — no function more important.

We need to remember the government isn’t some foreign force in a distant capital. No, it’s us. All of us. “We the People.” For you and I, that America thrives when we give our hearts, when we turn our hands to common purpose. And right now, my friends, we are doing just that. And I have to say, as your President, I am grateful to you.

Last summer, I was in Philadelphia, and I met a small-business owner — a woman. I asked her — I said, “What do you need most?” I’ll never forget what she said to me. She said — looking me in the eye, she said, “I just want the truth. The truth. Just tell me the truth.” Think of that.

My fellow Americans, you’re owed nothing less than the truth.

And for all of you asking when things will get back to normal, here is the truth: The only way to get our lives back, to get our economy back on track is to beat the virus.

You’ve been hearing me say that for — while I was running and the last 50 days I’ve been President. But this is one of the most complex operations we’ve under- — ever undertaken as a nation in a long time.

That’s why I’m using every power I have as President of the United States to put us on a war footing to get the job done. It sounds like hyperbole, but I mean it: a war footing.

And thank God we’re making some real progress now.

On my first full day in office, I outlined for you a comprehensive strategy to beat this pandemic. And we have spent every day since attempting to carry it out.

Two months ago, the country — this country didn’t have nearly enough vaccine supply to vaccinate all or near all of the American public. But soon we will.

We’ve been working with the vaccine manufacturers — Pfizer, Moderna, Johnson & Johnson — to manufacture and purchase hundreds of millions of doses of these three safe, effective vaccines. And now, at the direction and with the assistance of my administration, Johnson & Johnson is working together with a competitor, Merck, to speed up and increase the capacity to manufacture new Johnson & Johnson vaccine, which is one shot.

In fact, just yesterday, I announced — and I met with the CEOs of both companies — I announced our plan to buy an additional 100 million doses of Johnson & Johnson vaccines. These two companies — competitors — have come together for the good of the nation, and they should be applauded for it.

It’s truly a national effort, just like we saw during World War II.

Now because of all the work we’ve done, we’ll have enough vaccine supply for all adults in America by the end of May. That’s months ahead of schedule.

And we’re mobilizing thousands of vaccinators to put the vaccine in one’s arm. Calling on active duty military, FEMA, retired doctors and nurses, administrators, and those to administer the shots.

And we’ve been creating more places to get the shots. We’ve made it possible for you to get a vaccine at nearly one — any one of nearly 10,000 pharmacies across the country, just like you get your flu shot.

We’re also working with governors and mayors, in red states and blue states, to set up and support nearly 600 federally supported vaccination centers that administer hundreds of thousands of shots per day. You can drive up to a stadium or a large parking lot, get your shot, never leave your car, and drive home in less than an hour.

We’ve been sending vaccines to hundreds of community health centers all across America, located in underserved areas. And we’ve been deploying and we will deploy more mobile vehicles and pop-up clinics to meet you where you live so those who are least able to get the vaccine are able to get it.

We continue to work on making at-home testing available.

And we’ve been focused on serving people in the hardest-hit communities of this pandemic — Black, Latino, Native American, and rural communities.

So, what does all this add up to? When I took office 50 days ago, only 8 percent of Americans after months — only 8 percent of those over the age of 65 had gotten their first vaccination. Today, that number is [nearly] 65 percent. Just 14 percent of Americans over the age 75, 50 days ago, had gotten their first shot. Today, that number is well over 70 percent.

With new guidance from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention — the CDC — that came out on Monday, it means simply this: Millions and millions of grandparents who went months without being able to hug their grandkids can now do so. And the more people who are fully vaccinated, the CD [CDC] will continue to provide guidance on what you can do in the workplace, places of worship, with friends, and as well as travel.

When I came into office, you may recall, I set a goal that many of you said was, kind of, way over the top. I said I intended to get 100 million shots in people’s arms in my first 100 days in office. Tonight, I can say we are not only going to meet that goal, we’re going to beat that goal. Because we’re actually on track to reach this goal of 100 million shots in arms on my 60th day in office. No other country in the world has done this. None.

Now I want to talk about the next steps we’re thinking about.

First, tonight, I’m announcing that I will direct all states, tribes, and territories to make all adults — people 18 and over — eligible to be vaccinated no later than May 1.

Let me say that again: All adult Americans will be eligible to get a vaccine no later than May 1. That’s much earlier than expected.

Let me be clear: That doesn’t mean everyone’s going to have that shot immediately, but it means you’ll be able to get in line beginning May 1. Every adult will be eligible to get their shot.

To do this, we’re going to go from a million shots a day that I promised in December, before I was sworn in, to maintaining — beating our current pace of two million shots a day, outpacing the rest of the world.

Secondly, at the time when every adult is eligible in May, we will launch, with our partners, new tools to make it easier for you to find the vaccine and where to get the shot, including a new website that will help you first find the place to get vaccinated and the one nearest you. No more searching day and night for an appointment for you and your loved ones.

Thirdly, with the passage of the American Rescue Plan — and I thank again the House and Senate for passing it — and my announcement last month of a plan to vaccinate teachers and school staff, including bus drivers, we can accelerate the massive, nationwide effort to reopen our schools safely and meet my goal, that I stated at the same time about 100 million shots, of opening the majority of K-8 schools in my first 100 days in office. This is going to be the number one priority of my new Secretary of Education, Miguel Cardona.

Fourth, in the coming weeks, we will issue further guidance on what you can and cannot do once fully vaccinated, to lessen the confusion, to keep people safe, and encourage more people to get vaccinated.

And finally, fifth, and maybe most importantly: I promise I will do everything in my power, I will not relent until we beat this virus, but I need you, the American people. I need you. I need every American to do their part. And that’s not hyperbole. I need you.

I need you to get vaccinated when it’s your turn and when you can find an opportunity, and to help your family and friends and neighbors get vaccinated as well.

Because here’s the point: If we do all this, if we do our part, if we do this together, by July the 4th, there’s a good chance you, your families, and friends will be able to get together in your backyard or in your neighborhood and have a cookout and a barbeque and celebrate Independence Day. That doesn’t mean large events with lots of people together, but it does mean small groups will be able to get together.

After this long hard year, that will make this Independence Day something truly special, where we not only mark our independence as a nation, but we begin to mark our independence from this virus.

But to get there, we can’t let our guard down.

This fight is far from order — from over. As I told the woman in Pennsylvania, “I will tell you the truth.”

A July 4th with your loved ones is the goal. But a goal — a lot can happen; conditions can change.

The scientists have made clear that things may get worse again as new variants of the virus spread.

And we’ve got work to do to ensure everyone has confidence in the safety and effectiveness of all three vaccines.

So my message to you is this: Listen to Dr. Fauci, one of the most distinguished and trusted voices in the world. He has assured us the vaccines are safe. They underwent rigorous scientific review. I know they’re safe. Vice President Harris and I know they’re safe. That’s why we got the vaccine publicly in front of cameras so — for the world to see, so you could see us do it. The First Lady and the Second Gentleman also got vaccinated.

Talk to your family, your friends, your neighbors — the people you know best who’ve gotten the vaccine.

We need everyone to get vaccinated. We need everyone to keep washing their hands, stay socially distanced, and keep wearing the masks as recommended by the CDC.

Because even if we devote every resource we have, beating this virus and getting back to normal depends on national unity.

And national unity isn’t just how politics and politicians vote in Washington or what the loudest voices say on cable or online. Unity is what we do together as fellow Americans. Because if we don’t stay vigilant and the conditions change, then we may have to reinstate restrictions to get back on track. And, please, we don’t want to do again.

We’ve made so much progress. This is not the time to let up. Just as we are emerging from a dark winter into a hopeful spring and summer is not the time to not stick with the rules.

I’ll close with this.

We’ve lost so much over the last year.

We’ve lost family and friends.

We’ve lost businesses and dreams we spent years building.

We’ve lost time — time with each other.

And our children have lost so much time with their friends, time with their schools. No graduation ceremonies this — this spring. No graduations from college, high school, moving-up ceremonies.

You know, and there’s something else we lost.

We lost faith in whether our government and our democracy can deliver on really hard things for the American people.

But as I stand here tonight, we’re proving once again something I have said time and time again until they’re probably tired of hearing me say it. I say it foreign leaders and domestic alike: It’s never, ever a good bet to bet against the American people. America is coming back.

The development, manufacture, and distribution of the vaccines in record time is a true miracle of science. It is one of the most extraordinary achievements any country has ever accomplished.

And we also just saw the Perseverance rover land on Mars. Stunning images of our dreams that are now a reality. Another example of the extraordinary American ingenuity, commitment, and belief in science and one another.

And today, I signed into law the American Rescue Plan, an historic piece of legislation that delivers immediate relief to millions of people. It includes $1,400 in direct rescue checks — payments. That means a typical family of four earning about $110,000 will get checks for $5,600 deposited if they have direct deposit or in a check — a Treasury check.

It extends unemployment benefits. It helps small businesses. It lowers healthcare premiums for many. It provides food and nutrition, keeps families in their homes. And it will cut child poverty in this country in half, according to the experts. And it fi- — and it funds all the steps I’ve just described to beat the virus and create millions of jobs.

In the coming weeks and months, I’ll be traveling, along with the First Lady, the Vice President, the Second Gentleman and members of my Cabinet, to speak directly to you, to tell you the truth about how the American Rescue Plan meets the moment. And if it fails at any pa-, I will acknowledge that it failed. But it will not.

About how after a long, dark years — one whole year, there is hope and light of better days ahead.

If we all do our part, this country will be vaccinated soon, our economy will be on the mend, our kids will be back in school, and we will have proven once again that this country can do anything — hard things, big things, important things.

Over a year ago, no one could’ve imagined what we were about to go through, but now we’re coming through it, and it’s a shared experience that binds us together as a nation. We are bound together by the loss and the pain of the days that have gone by. But we’re also bound together by the hope and the possibilities of the days in front of us.

My fervent prayer for our country is that, after all we have been through, we’ll come together as one people, one nation, one America.

I believe we can and we will. We’re seizing this moment. And history, I believe, will record: We faced and overcame one of the toughest and darkest periods in this nation’s history — darkest we’ve ever known.

I promise you, we’ll come out stronger with a renewed faith in ourselves, a renewed commitment to one another, to our communities, and to our country.

This is the United States of America, and there is nothing — nothing — from the bottom of my heart, I believe this — there is nothing we can’t do when we do it together.

So God bless you all.

And please, God, give solace to all those people who lost someone.

And may God protect our troops.

Thank you for taking the time to listen.

I look forward to seeing you.

8:27 P.M. EST

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The pandemic changed the way we understand speech

A new study examines how certain now-common words influence what we expect to hear.

Our brains are great at filling in the blanks.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, we’ve been inundated with words and situations that were uncommon to many people before then. We’ve been in lockdowns, maintained social distance, worn masks, and taken vaccines and boosters, and have been talking about these topics seemingly nonstop. Life has looked very different for most people since the start of the pandemic, and new research suggests it has even altered the way we understand certain words.

Our study , 1 recently published in PLOS ONE, shows how likely we are to perceive these newly common words as a result of the pandemic — to the point that we expect to hear words like “mask” and “isolation,” even when a different but similar-sounding word is actually spoken. What word do you hear in these clips?

Now that we’ve lived through multiple years of the pandemic, you probably thought that the speaker is saying “lockdown,” “infection,” and “testing.” In reality, each recording is only a partial word: “--ockdown,” “in--ection” and “te--ing,” with a cough replacing the missing sound in each word.

The pandemic presented a once-in-a-generation opportunity to study rapid changes in the way we process language, as those changes were in the process of occurring. The abrupt change to everyone’s lives, and to the words that were on everyone’s lips, gave us a naturalistic way to study how the human brain understands speech and engages in statistical language learning. It also allowed us to study how the brain perceives words in noisy situations — like in a bar or on a train — where it’s not always clear exactly what word someone is saying. This research both helps us understand how our brains perform the highly complex task of understanding language, and may also help to better train AI models tasked with understanding human speech.

From April 2020 through February 2021, a total of 899 subjects participated in four experiments, conducted on Amazon Mechanical Turk, testing how they understood words like “mask” and “isolation” — words that did not feature prominently in our speech before COVID, but have now become extremely common. We found drastic, long-lasting cognitive effects in the way our brains understand these words.

What was that you said? What our 10-minute experiments taught us over 10 months

As cognitive psychologists, we love thinking about language and human interaction, and what happens in the brain when we talk to one another. As it became obvious that the sudden, massive societal shift caused by COVID was also changing the frequency with which we heard certain words, we wondered if it would cause any lasting changes to how our brains process language — a critical component of what makes us human.

At the time, we had no idea how the pandemic would unfold or that it would still be with us two and a half years later. This made the fact that we ran our first experiment just weeks after the start of the soon-to-be-commonly referenced “lockdowns” all the more prescient.

First, we decided on a set of 28 words which had become much more frequent after the onset of COVID – words such as “mask” and “lockdown.” To determine both the pre-pandemic frequency of these words (how often they were spoken between January and December 2019), and the post-pandemic-onset frequency of those same words (how often they were used between January and December 2020), we used the News on the Web ( NOW ) corpus — a dataset of thousands of newspaper and magazine articles containing billions of words, which, critically, includes when the articles were published and thus the date that each word was used. It was striking to see how much the frequency of individual words changed in such a short period of time: COVID-related words like “mask” were used three times as frequently during 2020 as they had been during 2019, even though similar-sounding words, like “map”, didn’t change at all.

Our experiments used the phonemic restoration task to test what words listeners understand when they hear something ambiguous. This works by recording a full word — for example, “knockdown” — and then removing one sound from the recording (here, the initial “kn” sound). Then, we replaced the deleted “kn” sound with a noise, as you can hear in the sound clip at the top of the post. We asked participants what word they heard when they listened to this now-incomplete and ambiguous recording. All the words we recorded were one sound away from a COVID-related word, such as "knockdown" instead of “lockdown,” and “task” instead of “mask.” And all of the recorded words were equally common in English as their COVID-related counterparts in 2019, but were much less commonly spoken in 2020.

The roughly 10-minute-long experiments presented each qualified participant with ambiguous auditory inputs. For example, a participant would hear a spoken word accompanied by an overlapping cough, much in the same way we might hear a word spoken in a crowd.

The pandemic changed the ranking of certain words we perceive

We ran a set of four experiments over the course of 10 months, and found that people now understand a slew of spoken words differently. For example, now that “mask” is more common, an ambiguous recording of a similar-sounding word “task” is misunderstood as “mask” three times as often as an ambiguous recording of the word “tap” is misunderstood as “map.” Our study is the first to demonstrate the presence of long-lasting changes in lexical accessibility induced by rapid changes in real-world linguistic input.

More research will be needed over time to confirm whether these pandemic-related words will recede to their pre-pandemic frequencies in our mental lexicons. But the implications are clear: Our brains rapidly adapt to the changing linguistic statistics of the world around us, and we predict and expect more common words compared to less common ones.

This research helps us to better understand how the brain processes language input, and adds to a growing body of research – including from our IBM Research colleagues studying other forms of sensory input – which may eventually inform the building of new AI models structured like our own brains. For example, this understanding of the brain's ability to rapidly adapt to changing word frequencies in real-world input could be applied to help digital assistants adapt to individual users' speech more effectively as well.

Rachel Ostrand

Kleinman, D., Morgan, A.M., Ostrand, R., Wittenberg, E. Lasting effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on language processing . PLOS ONE. June 15, 2022. ↩

Study Tracks Shifts in Student Mental Health During College

Dartmouth study followed 200 students all four years, including through the pandemic.

Andrew Campbell seated by a window in a blue t-shirt and glasses

Phone App Uses AI to Detect Depression From Facial Cues

A four-year study by Dartmouth researchers captures the most in-depth data yet on how college students’ self-esteem and mental health fluctuates during their four years in academia, identifying key populations and stressors that the researchers say administrators could target to improve student well-being.

The study also provides among the first real-time accounts of how the coronavirus pandemic affected students’ behavior and mental health. The stress and uncertainty of COVID-19 resulted in long-lasting behavioral changes that persisted as a “new normal” even as the pandemic diminished, including students feeling more stressed, less socially engaged, and sleeping more.

The researchers tracked more than 200 Dartmouth undergraduates in the classes of 2021 and 2022 for all four years of college. Students volunteered to let a specially developed app called StudentLife tap into the sensors that are built into smartphones. The app cataloged their daily physical and social activity, how long they slept, their location and travel, the time they spent on their phone, and how often they listened to music or watched videos. Students also filled out weekly behavioral surveys, and selected students gave post-study interviews.

The study—which is the longest mobile-sensing study ever conducted—is published in the Proceedings of the ACM on Interactive, Mobile, Wearable and Ubiquitous Technologies .

The researchers will present it at the Association of Computing Machinery’s UbiComp/ISWC 2024 conference in Melbourne, Australia, in October.

These sorts of tools will have a tremendous impact on projecting forward and developing much more data-driven ways to intervene and respond exactly when students need it most.

The team made their anonymized data set publicly available —including self-reports, surveys, and phone-sensing and brain-imaging data—to help advance research into the mental health of students during their college years.

Andrew Campbell , the paper’s senior author and Dartmouth’s Albert Bradley 1915 Third Century Professor of Computer Science, says that the study’s extensive data reinforces the importance of college and university administrators across the country being more attuned to how and when students’ mental well-being changes during the school year.

“For the first time, we’ve produced granular data about the ebb and flow of student mental health. It’s incredibly dynamic—there’s nothing that’s steady state through the term, let alone through the year,” he says. “These sorts of tools will have a tremendous impact on projecting forward and developing much more data-driven ways to intervene and respond exactly when students need it most.”

First-year and female students are especially at risk for high anxiety and low self-esteem, the study finds. Among first-year students, self-esteem dropped to its lowest point in the first weeks of their transition from high school to college but rose steadily every semester until it was about 10% higher by graduation.

“We can see that students came out of high school with a certain level of self-esteem that dropped off to the lowest point of the four years. Some said they started to experience ‘imposter syndrome’ from being around other high-performing students,” Campbell says. “As the years progress, though, we can draw a straight line from low to high as their self-esteem improves. I think we would see a similar trend class over class. To me, that’s a very positive thing.”

Female students—who made up 60% of study participants—experienced on average 5% greater stress levels and 10% lower self-esteem than male students. More significantly, the data show that female students tended to be less active, with male students walking 37% more often.

Sophomores were 40% more socially active compared to their first year, the researchers report. But these students also reported feeling 13% more stressed during their second year than during their first year as their workload increased, they felt pressure to socialize, or as first-year social groups dispersed.

One student in a sorority recalled that having pre-arranged activities “kind of adds stress as I feel like I should be having fun because everyone tells me that it is fun.” Another student noted that after the first year, “students have more access to the whole campus and that is when you start feeling excluded from things.”

In a novel finding, the researchers identify an “anticipatory stress spike” of 17% experienced in the last two weeks of summer break. While still lower than mid-academic year stress, the spike was consistent across different summers.

In post-study interviews, some students pointed to returning to campus early for team sports as a source of stress. Others specified reconnecting with family and high school friends during their first summer home, saying they felt “a sense of leaving behind the comfort and familiarity of these long-standing friendships” as the break ended, the researchers report.

“This is a foundational study,” says Subigya Nepal , first author of the study and a PhD candidate in Campbell’s research group. “It has more real-time granular data than anything we or anyone else has provided before. We don’t know yet how it will translate to campuses nationwide, but it can be a template for getting the conversation going.”

The depth and accuracy of the study data suggest that mobile-sensing software could eventually give universities the ability to create proactive mental-health policies specific to certain student populations and times of year, Campbell says.

For example, a paper Campbell’s research group published in 2022 based on StudentLife data showed that first-generation students experienced lower self-esteem and higher levels of depression than other students throughout their four years of college.

“We will be able to look at campus in much more nuanced ways than waiting for the results of an annual mental health study and then developing policy,” Campbell says. “We know that Dartmouth is a small and very tight-knit campus community. But if we applied these same methods to a college with similar attributes, I believe we would find very similar trends.”

Weathering the pandemic

When students returned home at the start of the coronavirus pandemic, the researchers found that self-esteem actually increased during the pandemic by 5% overall and by another 6% afterward when life returned closer to what it was before. One student suggested in their interview that getting older came with more confidence. Others indicated that being home led to them spending more time with friends talking on the phone, on social media, or streaming movies together.

The data show that phone usage—measured by the duration a phone was unlocked—indeed increased by nearly 33 minutes, or 19%, during the pandemic, while time spent in physical activity dropped by 52 minutes, or 27%. By 2022, phone usage fell from its pandemic peak to just above pre-pandemic levels, while engagement in physical activity had recovered to exceed the pre-pandemic period by three minutes.

Despite reporting higher self-esteem, students’ feelings of stress increased by more than 10% during the pandemic. By the end of the study in June 2022, stress had fallen by less than 2% of its pandemic peak, indicating that the experience had a lasting impact on student well-being, the researchers report.

In early 2021, as students returned to campus, their reunion with friends and community was tempered by an overwhelming concern about the still-rampant coronavirus. “There was the first outbreak in winter 2021 and that was terrifying,” one student recalls. Another student adds: “You could be put into isolation for a long time even if you did not have COVID. Everyone was afraid to contact-trace anyone else in case they got mad at each other.”

Female students were especially concerned about the coronavirus, on average 13% more than male students. “Even though the girls might have been hanging out with each other more, they are more aware of the impact,” one female student reported. “I actually had COVID and exposed some friends of mine. All the girls that I told tested as they were worried. They were continually checking up to make sure that they did not have it and take it home to their family.”

Students still learning remotely had social levels 16% higher than students on campus, who engaged in activity an average of 10% less often than when they were learning from home. However, on-campus students used their phones 47% more often. When interviewed after the study, these students reported spending extended periods of time video-calling or streaming movies with friends and family.

Social activity and engagement had not yet returned to pre-pandemic levels by the end of the study in June 2022, recovering by a little less than 3% after a nearly 10% drop during the pandemic. Similarly, the pandemic correlates with students sticking closer to home, with their distance traveled nearly cut in half during the pandemic and holding at that level since then.

Campbell and several of his fellow researchers are now developing a smartphone app known as MoodCapture that uses artificial intelligence paired with facial-image processing software to reliably detect the onset of depression before the user even knows something is wrong.

Morgan Kelly can be reached at [email protected] .

Mental Health and Wellness
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Arts and Sciences
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Presidential Speeches

September 9, 2021: remarks on fighting the covid-⁠19 pandemic, about this speech.

September 09, 2021

As the Delta variant of the Covid-19 virus spreads and cases and deaths increase in the United States, President Joe Biden announces new efforts to fight the pandemic. He outlines six broad areas of action--implementing new vaccination requirements, protecting the vaccinated with booster shots, keeping children safe and schools open, increasing testing and masking, protecting our economic recovery, and improving care of those who do get Covid-19.

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THE PRESIDENT: Good evening, my fellow Americans. I want to talk to you about where we are in the battle against COVID-19, the progress we’ve made, and the work we have left to do.

And it starts with understanding this: Even as the Delta variant 19 [sic] has—COVID-19—has been hitting this country hard, we have the tools to combat the virus, if we can come together as a country and use those tools.

If we raise our vaccination rate, protect ourselves and others with masking and expanded testing, and identify people who are infected, we can and we will turn the tide on COVID-19.

It will take a lot of hard work, and it’s going to take some time. Many of us are frustrated with the nearly 80 million Americans who are still not vaccinated, even though the vaccine is safe, effective, and free.

You might be confused about what is true and what is false about COVID-19. So before I outline the new steps to fight COVID-19 that I’m going to be announcing tonight, let me give you some clear information about where we stand.

First, we have cons—we have made considerable progress

in battling COVID-19. When I became President, about 2 million Americans were fully vaccinated. Today, over 175 million Americans have that protection.

Before I took office, we hadn’t ordered enough vaccine for every American. Just weeks in office, we did. The week before I took office, on January 20th of this year, over 25,000 Americans died that week from COVID-19. Last week, that grim weekly toll was down 70 percent.

And in the three months before I took office, our economy was faltering, creating just 50,000 jobs a month. We’re now averaging 700,000 new jobs a month in the past three months.

This progress is real. But while America is in much better shape than it was seven months ago when I took office, I need to tell you a second fact.

We’re in a tough stretch, and it could last for a while. The highly contagious Delta variant that I began to warn America about back in July spread in late summer like it did in other countries before us.

While the vaccines provide strong protections for the vaccinated, we read about, we hear about, and we see the stories of hospitalized people, people on their death beds, among the unvaccinated over these past few weeks.

This is a pandemic of the unvaccinated. And it’s caused by the fact that despite America having an unprecedented and successful vaccination program, despite the fact that for almost five months free vaccines have been available in 80,000 different locations, we still have nearly 80 million Americans who have failed to get the shot.

And to make matters worse, there are elected officials actively working to undermine the fight against COVID-19. Instead of encouraging people to get vaccinated and mask up, they’re ordering mobile morgues for the unvaccinated dying from COVID in their communities. This is totally unacceptable.

Third, if you wonder how all this adds up, here’s the math: The vast majority of Americans are doing the right thing. Nearly three quarters of the eligible have gotten at least one shot, but one quarter has not gotten any. That’s nearly 80 million Americans not vaccinated. And in a country as large as ours, that’s 25 percent minority. That 25 percent can cause a lot of damage—and they are.

The unvaccinated overcrowd our hospitals, are overrunning the emergency rooms and intensive care units, leaving no room for someone with a heart attack, or pancreitis [pancreatitis], or cancer.

And fourth, I want to emphasize that the vaccines provide very strong protection from severe illness from COVID-19. I know there’s a lot of confusion and misinformation. But the world’s leading scientists confirm that if you are fully vaccinated, your risk of severe illness from COVID-19 is very low.

In fact, based on available data from the summer, only one of out of every 160,000 fully vaccinated Americans was hospitalized for COVID per day.

These are the facts.

So here’s where we stand: The path ahead, even with the Delta variant, is not nearly as bad as last winter. But what makes it incredibly more frustrating is that we have the tools to combat COVID-19, and a distinct minority of Americans –supported by a distinct minority of elected officials—are keeping us from turning the corner. These pandemic politics, as I refer to, are making people sick, causing unvaccinated people to die.

We cannot allow these actions to stand in the way of protecting the large majority of Americans who have done their part and want to get back to life as normal.

As your President, I’m announcing tonight a new plan to require more Americans to be vaccinated, to combat those blocking public health.

My plan also increases testing, protects our economy, and will make our kids safer in schools. It consists of six broad areas of action and many specific measures in each that—and each of those actions that you can read more about at WhiteHouse.gov. WhiteHouse.gov.

The measures—these are going to take time to have full impact. But if we implement them, I believe and the scientists indicate, that in the months ahead we can reduce the number of unvaccinated Americans, decrease hospitalizations and deaths, and allow our children to go to school safely and keep our economy strong by keeping businesses open.

First, we must increase vaccinations among the unvaccinated with new vaccination requirements. Of the nearly 80 million eligible Americans who have not gotten vaccinated, many said they were waiting for approval from the Food and Drug Administration—the FDA. Well, last month, the FDA granted that approval.

So, the time for waiting is over. This summer, we made progress through the combination of vaccine requirements and incentives, as well as the FDA approval. Four million more people got their first shot in August than they did in July.

But we need to do more. This is not about freedom or personal choice. It’s about protecting yourself and those around you—the people you work with, the people you care about, the people you love.

My job as President is to protect all Americans.

So, tonight, I’m announcing that the Department of Labor is developing an emergency rule to require all employers with 100 or more employees, that together employ over 80 million workers, to ensure their workforces are fully vaccinated or show a negative test at least once a week.

Some of the biggest companies are already requiring this: United Airlines, Disney, Tysons Food, and even Fox News.

The bottom line: We’re going to protect vaccinated workers from unvaccinated co-workers. We’re going to reduce the spread of COVID-19 by increasing the share of the workforce that is vaccinated in businesses all across America.

My plan will extend the vaccination requirements that I previously issued in the healthcare field. Already, I’ve announced, we’ll be requiring vaccinations that all nursing home workers who treat patients on Medicare and Medicaid, because I have that federal authority.

Tonight, I’m using that same authority to expand that to cover those who work in hospitals, home healthcare facilities, or other medical facilities–a total of 17 million healthcare workers.

If you’re seeking care at a health facility, you should be able to know that the people treating you are vaccinated. Simple. Straightforward. Period.

Next, I will sign an executive order that will now require all executive branch federal employees to be vaccinated—all. And I’ve signed another executive order that will require federal contractors to do the same.

If you want to work with the federal government and do business with us, get vaccinated. If you want to do business with the federal government, vaccinate your workforce.

And tonight, I’m removing one of the last remaining obstacles that make it difficult for you to get vaccinated.

The Department of Labor will require employers with 100 or more workers to give those workers paid time off to get vaccinated. No one should lose pay in order to get vaccinated or take a loved one to get vaccinated.

Today, in total, the vaccine requirements in my plan will affect about 100 million Americans—two thirds of all workers.

And for other sectors, I issue this appeal: To those of you running large entertainment venues—from sports arenas to concert venues to movie theaters—please require folks to get vaccinated or show a negative test as a condition of entry.

And to the nation’s family physicians, pediatricians, GPs—general practitioners—you’re the most trusted medical voice to your patients. You may be the one person who can get someone to change their mind about being vaccinated.

Tonight, I’m asking each of you to reach out to your unvaccinated patients over the next two weeks and make a personal appeal to them to get the shot. America needs your personal involvement in this critical effort.

And my message to unvaccinated Americans is this: What more is there to wait for? What more do you need to see? We’ve made vaccinations free, safe, and convenient.

The vaccine has FDA approval. Over 200 million Americans have gotten at least one shot.

We’ve been patient, but our patience is wearing thin. And your refusal has cost all of us. So, please, do the right thing. But just don’t take it from me; listen to the voices of unvaccinated Americans who are lying in hospital beds, taking their final breaths, saying, “If only I had gotten vaccinated.” “If only.”

It’s a tragedy. Please don’t let it become yours.

The second piece of my plan is continuing to protect the vaccinated.

For the vast majority of you who have gotten vaccinated, I understand your anger at those who haven’t gotten vaccinated. I understand the anxiety about getting a “breakthrough” case.

But as the science makes clear, if you’re fully vaccinated, you’re highly protected from severe illness, even if you get COVID-19.

In fact, recent data indicates there is only one confirmed positive case per 5,000 fully vaccinated Americans per day.

You’re as safe as possible, and we’re doing everything we can to keep it that way—keep it that way, keep you safe.

That’s where boosters come in—the shots that give you even more protection than after your second shot.

Now, I know there’s been some confusion about boosters. So, let me be clear: Last month, our top government doctors announced an initial plan for booster shots for vaccinated Americans. They believe that a booster is likely to provide the highest level of protection yet.

Of course, the decision of which booster shots to give, when to start them, and who will give them, will be left completely to the scientists at the FDA and the Centers for Disease Control.

But while we wait, we’ve done our part. We’ve bought enough boosters—enough booster shots—and the distribution system is ready to administer them.

As soon as they are authorized, those eligible will be able to get a booster right away in tens of thousands of site across the—sites across the country for most Americans, at your nearby drug store, and for free.

The third piece of my plan is keeping—and maybe the most important—is keeping our children safe and our schools open. For any parent, it doesn’t matter how low the risk of any illness or accident is when it comes to your child or grandchild. Trust me, I know.

So, let me speak to you directly. Let me speak to you directly to help ease some of your worries.

It comes down to two separate categories: children ages 12 and older who are eligible for a vaccine now, and children ages 11 and under who are not are yet eligible.

The safest thing for your child 12 and older is to get them vaccinated. They get vaccinated for a lot of things. That’s it. Get them vaccinated.

As with adults, almost all the serious COVID-19 cases we’re seeing among adolescents are in unvaccinated 12- to 17-year-olds—an age group that lags behind in vaccination rates.

So, parents, please get your teenager vaccinated.

What about children under the age of 12 who can’t get vaccinated yet? Well, the best way for a parent to protect their child under the age of 12 starts at home. Every parent, every teen sibling, every caregiver around them should be vaccinated.

Children have four times higher chance of getting hospitalized if they live in a state with low vaccination rates rather than the states with high vaccination rates.

Now, if you’re a parent of a young child, you’re wondering when will it be—when will it be—the vaccine available for them. I strongly support an independent scientific review for vaccine uses for children under 12. We can’t take shortcuts with that scientific work.

But I’ve made it clear I will do everything within my power to support the FDA with any resource it needs to continue to do this as safely and as quickly as possible, and our nation’s top doctors are committed to keeping the public at large updated on the process so parents can plan.

Now to the schools. We know that if schools follow the science and implement the safety measures—like testing, masking, adequate ventilation systems that we provided the money for, social distancing, and vaccinations—then children can be safe from COVID-19 in schools.

Today, about 90 percent of school staff and teachers are vaccinated. We should get that to 100 percent. My administration has already acquired teachers at the schools run by the Defense Department—because I have the authority as President in the federal system—the Defense Department and the Interior Department—to get vaccinated. That’s authority I possess.

Tonight, I’m announcing that we’ll require all of nearly 300,000 educators in the federal paid program, Head Start program, must be vaccinated as well to protect your youngest—our youngest—most precious Americans and give parents the comfort.

And tonight, I’m calling on all governors to require vaccination for all teachers and staff. Some already have done so, but we need more to step up.

Vaccination requirements in schools are nothing new. They work. They’re overwhelmingly supported by educators and their unions. And to all school officials trying to do the right thing by our children: I’ll always be on your side.

Let me be blunt. My plan also takes on elected officials and states that are undermining you and these lifesaving actions. Right now, local school officials are trying to keep children safe in a pandemic while their governor picks a fight with them and even threatens their salaries or their jobs. Talk about bullying in schools. If they’ll not help—if these governors won’t help us beat the pandemic, I’ll use my power as President to get them out of the way.

The Department of Education has already begun to take legal action against states undermining protection that local school officials have ordered. Any teacher or school official whose pay is withheld for doing the right thing, we will have that pay restored by the federal government 100 percent. I promise you I will have your back.

The fourth piece of my plan is increasing testing and masking. From the start, America has failed to do enough COVID-19 testing. In order to better detect and control the Delta variant, I’m taking steps tonight to make testing more available, more affordable, and more convenient. I’ll use the Defense Production Act to increase production of rapid tests, including those that you can use at home.

While that production is ramping up, my administration has worked with top retailers, like Walmart, Amazon, and Kroger’s, and tonight we’re announcing that, no later than next week, each of these outlets will start to sell at-home rapid test kits at cost for the next three months. This is an immediate price reduction for at-home test kits for up to 35 percent reduction.

We’ll also expand—expand free testing at 10,000 pharmacies around the country. And we’ll commit—we’re committing $2 billion to purchase nearly 300 million rapid tests for distribution to community health centers, food banks, schools, so that every American, no matter their income, can access free and convenient tests. This is important to everyone, particularly for a parent or a child—with a child not old enough to be vaccinated. You’ll be able to test them at home and test those around them.

In addition to testing, we know masking helps stop the spread of COVID-19. That’s why when I came into office, I required masks for all federal buildings and on federal lands, on airlines, and other modes of transportation.

Today—tonight, I’m announcing that the Transportation Safety Administration—the TSA—will double the fines on travelers that refuse to mask. If you break the rules, be prepared to pay.

And, by the way, show some respect. The anger you see on television toward flight attendants and others doing their job is wrong; it’s ugly.

The fifth piece of my plan is protecting our economic recovery. Because of our vaccination program and the American Rescue Plan, which we passed early in my administration, we’ve had record job creation for a new administration, economic growth unmatched in 40 years. We cannot let unvaccinated do this progress—undo it, turn it back.

So tonight, I’m announcing additional steps to strengthen our economic recovery. We’ll be expanding COVID-19 Economic Injury Disaster Loan programs. That’s a program that’s going to allow small businesses to borrow up to $2 million from the current $500,000 to keep going if COVID-19 impacts on their sales.

These low-interest, long-term loans require no repayment for two years and be can used to hire and retain workers, purchase inventory, or even pay down higher cost debt racked up since the pandemic began. I’ll also be taking additional steps to help small businesses stay afloat during the pandemic.

Sixth, we’re going to continue to improve the care of those who do get COVID-19. In early July, I announced the deployment of surge response teams. These are teams comprised of experts from the Department of Health and Human Services, the CDC, the Defense Department, and the Federal Emergency Management Agency—FEMA—to areas in the country that need help to stem the spread of COVID-19.

Since then, the federal government has deployed nearly 1,000 staff, including doctors, nurses, paramedics, into 18 states. Today, I’m announcing that the Defense Department will double the number of military health teams that they’ll deploy to help their fellow Americans in hospitals around the country.

Additionally, we’re increasing the availability of new medicines recommended by real doctors, not conspir-—conspiracy theorists. The monoclonal antibody treatments have been shown to reduce the risk of hospitalization by up to 70 percent for unvaccinated people at risk of developing sefe-—severe disease.

We’ve already distributed 1.4 million courses of these treatments to save lives and reduce the strain on hospitals. Tonight, I’m announcing we will increase the average pace of shipment across the country of free monoclonal antibody treatments by another 50 percent.

Before I close, let me say this: Communities of color are disproportionately impacted by this virus. And as we continue to battle COVID-19, we will ensure that equity continues to be at the center of our response. We’ll ensure that everyone is reached. My first responsibility as President is to protect the American people and make sure we have enough vaccine for every American, including enough boosters for every American who’s approved to get one.

We also know this virus transcends borders. That’s why, even as we execute this plan at home, we need to continue fighting the virus overseas, continue to be the arsenal of vaccines.

We’re proud to have donated nearly 140 million vaccines over 90 countries, more than all other countries combined, including Europe, China, and Russia combined. That’s American leadership on a global stage, and that’s just the beginning.

We’ve also now started to ship another 500 million COVID vaccines—Pfizer vaccines—purchased to donate to 100 lower-income countries in need of vaccines. And I’ll be announcing additional steps to help the rest of the world later this month.

As I recently released the key parts of my pandemic preparedness plan so that America isn’t caught flat-footed when a new pandemic comes again—as it will—next month, I’m also going to release the plan in greater detail.

So let me close with this: We have so-—we’ve made so much progress during the past seven months of this pandemic. The recent increases in vaccinations in August already are having an impact in some states where case counts are dropping in recent days. Even so, we remain at a critical moment, a critical time. We have the tools. Now we just have to finish the job with truth, with science, with confidence, and together as one nation.

Look, we’re the United States of America. There’s nothing—not a single thing—we’re unable to do if we do it together. So let’s stay together.

God bless you all and all those who continue to serve on the frontlines of this pandemic. And may God protect our troops.

Get vaccinated.

More Joe Biden speeches

Disease X: Critics say Biden admin selling out US sovereignty with WHO treaty

T he Biden administration is negotiating a controversial global pandemic treaty with the World Health Organization (WHO) that the health agency says will help the world prepare for the next pandemic and the potential outbreak of "Disease X," but critics say the agreement will end up stifling free speech and cede American sovereignty to the global body.

The WHO has been sounding the alarm for months that a May deadline for having the text of the treaty agreed upon is fast approaching, an accord it says is necessary to "bolster the world’s collective preparedness and response to future pandemics." The health agency wants to ratify the treaty at the World Health Assembly at its May 2024 Annual General Assembly.

Last week, dozens of former heads of state, including former U.K. Prime Ministers Tony Blair and Gordon Brown, as well as former UN General Secretary Ban-ki Moon, penned a joint letter urging "accelerated progress" in current negotiations while WHO Director Tedros Ghebreyesus has been warning for months that an agreement is needed for "when, not if," Disease X strikes. Disease X is a hypothetical "placeholder" virus that has not yet been formed, but scientists say it could be 20 times deadlier than COVID-19.

WHO DIRECTOR CALLS FOR WORLD PANDEMIC TREATY TO PREPARE FOR DISEASE X

But critics are casting doubt on the unelected agency's need for such an agreement that would demand the U.S. share its public health data with the agency and more than 190 countries and follow WHO rules on how to prepare and react to the next pandemic. The treaty, critics say, would allow the WHO to dictate global public health policy. For instance, the word "shall" appears throughout the draft document which would be legally binding under the agreement.

Opponents also say that a public health emergency is not clearly defined and could be extended to include climate, reproductive health or immigration emergencies.

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Rep. Brad Wenstrup, R-Oh., who chairs the House Oversight and Accountability Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic, says that sovereignty and intellectual property rights of Americans are threatened by the global accord.

"The Biden Administration must ensure that the final draft does not violate American sovereignty or infringe upon the rights of the American people," Wenstrup told Fox News Digital." Without being presented to Congress for approval, any pandemic treaty is wholly insufficient."

Under the constitution, the U.S. can only enter a treaty if the president submits the accord to the Senate, and it is approved by a two-thirds majority.

Advancing American Freedom (AAF), a non-profit advocacy group founded by former Vice President Mike Pence , says that the treaty undermines U.S. sovereignty and insists it would leave the U.S. worse off for a future pandemic.

"The United States should withdraw from the World Health Organization," John Shelton, the policy director at AAF tells Fox News Digital.

"Instead, the Biden Administration continues to negotiate a fundamentally flawed draft that sells out American interests. No treaty should be considered without a change in WHO leadership and accountability for the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), including its role in the COVID-19 pandemic. The WHO remains a geopolitically compromised institution paid for by American tax dollars," Shelton said.

The WHO faced strong criticism from around the world over its slow response to investigating China for the COVID outbreak. A WHO team investigating the origins of the coronavirus pandemic also downplayed the possibility that the virus leaked from a lab near Wuhan, China.

'DISEASE X': WORLD ECONOMIC FORUM CREATING CONTINGENCY PLAN FOR INFECTIOUS VIRUS OUTBREAK

A State Department spokesperson tells Fox News Digital that the U.S. government will oppose any agreement that would undermine U.S. sovereignty, security and economic competitiveness and the right of Americans to make their own health care decisions. Ambassador Pamela Hamamoto is representing the U.S. in discussions with more than 190 nations.

"The Biden-Harris Administration’s most fundamental responsibility is to protect the American people. To do that, we must protect the U.S. against the next pandemic by working with other countries to help detect threats as soon as they emerge, contain those threats at their source, and respond quickly to save lives," a State Department spokesperson said.

"Detecting infectious disease threats quickly, and sharing that information widely, is critical to limit global transmission and to rapidly develop necessary diagnostics, vaccines and other countermeasures to mitigate adverse health effects."

In their letter last week, the former leaders blasted those raising sovereignty and warned that "no one is safe anywhere until everyone is safe everywhere."

"Among the falsehoods circulating are allegations that the WHO intends to monitor people’s movements through digital passports; that it will take away the national sovereignty of countries; and that it will have the ability to deploy armed troops to enforce mandatory vaccinations and lockdowns," the letter reads.

"All of these claims are wholly false and governments must work to disavow them with clear facts."

Tedros has also panned these concerns in the past as "fake news, lies, and conspiracy theories."

Nevertheless, last year the WHO and the European Commission announced the rollout of a "digital COVID-19 certification" system, which is effectively a digital vaccine passport system.

Meanwhile, freedom of speech concerns have also been raised by ADF International, a faith-based legal advocacy organization.

The group says that the current draft would obligate the U.S. and other signees to prevent "misinformation and disinformation" under Article 18 of the draft.

"The revised negotiating text for the WHO Pandemic Agreement continues to misrepresent the human right to freedom of expression as a threat to public health," said Giorgio Mazzoli, the director of UN Advocacy with ADF International. 

"Everyone agrees that life is precious and that states have an interest in protecting public health. But some of the most grave and systematic human rights abuses of the last century unfolded during public emergencies, and we must be vigilant to protect hard-won rights – especially in times of crisis," Mazzoli said.

"When it comes to vague and undefined concepts such as ‘misinformation’ or ‘disinformation,’ the currently proposed cure is far worse than the disease."

The State Department, however, says that any agreement would have to guarantee Americans' right to freedom of speech.

Negotiations on the latest draft are expected to wrap up later this week.

Original article source: Disease X: Critics say Biden admin selling out US sovereignty with WHO treaty

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March 2024 global poverty update from the World Bank: first estimates of global poverty until 2022 from survey data

R. andres castaneda aguilar, carolina diaz-bonilla, christoph lakner, minh cong nguyen, martha viveros, samuel kofi tetteh baah.

Global poverty estimates were updated today on the Poverty and Inequality Platform (PIP). As explained in more detail in the What’s New document, more than 100 new surveys were added to the PIP database, bringing the total number of surveys to more than 2,300. With more recent survey data, this March 2024 PIP update is the first to report a global poverty number for 2020-2022, the period of the COVID-19 pandemic. We estimate that COVID-19 increased extreme poverty in the world, as measured by the international poverty line of $2.15, from 8.9 percent in 2019 to 9.7 percent in 2020 (see Figure 1). This is the first increase in global poverty in decades. It is in line with earlier estimates of the COVID-19 impact which used limited survey data and GDP growth projections. The global increase in extreme poverty in 2020 is driven by South Asia, where extreme poverty increased by 2.4 percentage points to 13 percent between 2019 and 2020. In Latin America and the Caribbean, however, extreme poverty continued to decline in 2020, which is driven by Brazil. This can be explained by the role of fiscal policy in mitigating the economic impacts of the COVID-19 shock . At a higher poverty line of $3.65 ( the poverty line more relevant for assessing poverty in lower-middle-income countries ), poverty also fell in Latin America and the Caribbean and in East Asia and the Pacific even in 2020. At $6.85 ( the poverty line more relevant for assessing poverty in upper-middle-income countries ), poverty also declined in 2020 in Europe and Central Asia and in advanced countries (“Other High Income”). Unfortunately, survey coverage during the post-2019 period is still limited in Sub-Saharan Africa and the Middle East and North Africa, so we cannot report poverty estimates beyond 2019 for these regions.

Figure 1: Global and regional poverty estimates, 1990 - 2022

Following the widespread recession in 2020, economies around the world started to recover in 2021 and extreme poverty levels were lower than pre-pandemic levels in the more prosperous regions of the world by 2022 (East Asia and the Pacific, Latin America and the Caribbean, advanced countries, Europe and Central Asia, and South Asia). For the world, however, global poverty was still marginally above pre-pandemic levels by 2022, though on a declining trend. The new estimates of extreme poverty in the world in the period 2020-2022 are quite similar to earlier projections. An estimated 23 million more people were living in extreme poverty in 2022, compared to 2019. That extreme poverty levels were lower in 2022 relative to 2019 for more prosperous regions, but not for the world, suggests that the economic recovery from the pandemic was uneven and slower for Sub-Saharan Africa where more than half of the extreme poor live. The year 2022 also came with another global shock – Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, which contributed to rising inflation in low-, middle- and high-income countries. At the $3.65 and $6.85 poverty lines, the global poverty rate in 2022 are lower the levels recorded in 2019. This result is consistent with the recovery being faster in more prosperous regions, considering that Sub-Saharan Africa accounts for a smaller share of the global poor at these higher lines compared to the extreme poverty line. This March 2024 global poverty update from the World Bank incorporates updated CPI, national accounts and population data, and revises previously published global and regional estimates from 1981 to 2022. The methodology used for lining up regional and global poverty has also been revised, which leads to small changes. For more details, see the What’s New document. Figure 1 shows global and regional poverty trends at all three global absolute poverty lines of the World Bank (see the poverty series using 2011 PPPs here ). Table 1 summarizes the revisions to the regional and global poverty estimates between the September 2023 data vintage and the March 2024 data vintage for the 2019 reference year at all three poverty lines.

Table 1: Poverty estimates for reference year 2019, changes between the September 2023 and March 2024 PIP vintages

Given all the new data points and revisions to PIP data and methodology in this update, global extreme poverty in 2019 has been revised down marginally by 0.1 percentage points to 8.9 percent, resulting in a downward revision in the number of poor people from 701 to 689 million. The global reduction in the millions of extreme poor occurs despite an upward revision in Sub-Saharan Africa (14 million). The reduction is driven by Europe and Central Asia and the Middle East and North Africa, where new survey data have recently become available to replace extrapolations of very old surveys (the regional estimate for Middle East and North Africa cannot be shown since it does not meet the 50% population cut-off.) For example, new survey data for 2022 have been added for Syria and Uzbekistan, for which the latest surveys were 2003 in the previous vintage of the data. At $3.65 and $6.85, poverty rates have been revised down by 0.7 and 0.6 percentage points, representing a reduction in global poverty counts by 52 and 44 million, respectively. These downward revisions in global poverty estimates at these higher poverty thresholds are driven by Europe and Central Asia and South Asia. For more details on the March 2024 PIP update from the World Bank, see the What’s New document.

Would you like to be updated with the latest news on PIP? Register to our newsletter  here .

The authors gratefully acknowledge financial support from the UK Government through the Data and Evidence for Tackling Extreme Poverty (DEEP) Research Program.

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Economist, Development Data Group, World Bank

Senior Economist, Poverty and Equity Global Practice, World Bank

Data Scientist

Program Manager, Development Data Group, World Bank

Senior Data Scientist, Poverty and Equity Global Practice, World Bank

Consultant, Development Data Group, World Bank

Economist, Global Poverty and Inequality Data (GPID), Development Data Group, World Bank

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But of course, COVID-19 will not be the last Disease X. Epidemics and pandemics are a fact of nature, exacerbated in our time by urbanization, encroachment on habitats, the climate crisis and insecurity. There can be no health without peace, and no peace without health - and that is true everywhere, from Ethiopia to Syria, Yemen and Ukraine.
Director-General's speech on building health systems resilience during
The position paper outlines seven policy recommendations: First, leverage the current response to COVID-19 to strengthen both pandemic preparedness and health systems; Second, invest in essential public health functions, including those needed for all-hazards emergency risk management; Third, build a strong primary health care foundation for ...
WHO Director-General's opening remarks at the media briefing on COVID
WHO Director-General's opening remarks at the media briefing on COVID-19 - 20 March 2020. 20 March 2020. Good morning, good afternoon and good evening, wherever you are. Every day, COVID-19 seems to reach a new and tragic milestone. More than 210,000 cases have now been reported to WHO, and more than 9,000 people have lost their lives.
Reversing the Inequality Pandemic: Speech by World ...
As Jens said, the COVID-19 pandemic is a crisis like no other. Its toll has been massive and people in the poorest countries are likely to suffer the most and the longest. The pandemic has taken lives and disrupted livelihoods in every corner of the globe. It has knocked more economies into simultaneous recession than at any time since 1870.
The Covid-19 Pandemic -- Finding Solutions, Applying Lessons Learned
The COVID-19 Pandemic — Finding Solutions, Applying Lessons Learned (Remarks as prepared for delivery. The text and video of this speech are slightly, though not substantively different from the ...
Covid-19 Triggers Wave of Free Speech Abuse
At least 83 governments worldwide have used the Covid-19 pandemic to justify violating the exercise of free speech and peaceful assembly, Human Rights Watch said today. Authorities have attacked ...
Speech by Governor Bowman on the pandemic's effect on the economy and
But that picture was dramatically altered with the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. Efforts to contain the spread of the virus caused a sudden stop in economic activity during March and April. While the extent of the closures and shutdowns varied widely throughout the country, the sudden loss of employment and the contraction in output were like ...
Graduation Speeches During The COVID-19 Pandemic : NPR
Just be nice to people. Trust sows the seeds of freedom, and a little respect truly does go a long way. It could even solve a few of the world's problems. You never know when you'll need to fall ...
COVID-19 pandemic crisis—a complete outline of SARS-CoV-2
The COVID-19 or the SARS-CoV-2 is rapidly unfurling from Wuhan in Hubei Province of China to worldwide [ 4 ]. Initial confirmation of the pandemic was carried out by conducting studies on 99 patients with COVID-19 pneumonia, from which 49% of patients exhibited a history of subjection to the Huanan seafood market.
Remarks by President Biden on the COVID-19 Response and the Vaccination
After a strict process, the FDA has reaffirmed its findings that the Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine is safe and effective, and the FDA has given its full and final approval. So let me say this loudly and ...
Discursive structures and power relations in Covid-19 knowledge
The paper critiques two discursive structures of exclusion, the terms science and conspiracy theory, which have characterised the knowledge production discourse of the Covid-19 pandemic on social ...
Remarks by President Biden on the Anniversary of the COVID-19 Shutdown
19. Shutdown. THE PRESIDENT: Good evening, my fellow Americans. Tonight, I'd like to talk to you about where we are as we mark one year since everything stopped because of this pandemic. A year ...
Bill Maher rips govt for censoring 'dissenting opinions' about COVID-19
The host continued, providing examples of where speech on the topic was discouraged. ... Bill Maher rips govt for censoring 'dissenting opinions' about COVID-19 pandemic that were the 'right ones'
WHO Director-General's opening remarks at the media briefing on COVID
There have also been some examples of people infected with COVID-19 being infected for a second time. Second, the vast majority of people in most countries remain susceptible to this virus. Seroprevalence surveys suggest that in most countries, less than 10% of the population have been infected with the COVID-19 virus.
The pandemic changed the way we understand speech
The pandemic changed the ranking of certain words we perceive. We ran a set of four experiments over the course of 10 months, and found that people now understand a slew of spoken words differently. For example, now that "mask" is more common, an ambiguous recording of a similar-sounding word "task" is misunderstood as "mask" three ...
PolitiFact
During a speech in North Carolina this week, President Joe Biden misrepresented comments by former President Donald Trum ... Biden said Trump's response to the COVID-19 pandemic shows he can't ...
Study Tracks Shifts in Student Mental Health During College
The study also provides among the first real-time accounts of how the coronavirus pandemic affected students' behavior and mental health. The stress and uncertainty of COVID-19 resulted in long-lasting behavioral changes that persisted as a "new normal" even as the pandemic diminished, including students feeling more stressed, less ...
September 9, 2021: Remarks on Fighting the COVID-⁠19 Pandemic
September 09, 2021. Source The White House. As the Delta variant of the Covid-19 virus spreads and cases and deaths increase in the United States, President Joe Biden announces new efforts to fight the pandemic. He outlines six broad areas of action--implementing new vaccination requirements, protecting the vaccinated with booster shots ...
Disease X: Critics say Biden admin selling out US sovereignty ...
T he Biden administration is negotiating a controversial global pandemic treaty with the World Health Organization (WHO) that the health agency says will help the world prepare for the next ...
Another pandemic is coming. This time we have to be ready
The state was ill-prepared for such a mass health crisis and we cannot allow our elderly, those in care homes and the vulnerable to be placed at such risk in a future pandemic.
Humans give more viruses to animals than they give us, study finds
The virus that causes AIDS, for example, crossed over from chimpanzees. And many experts believe the virus that caused the COVID-19 pandemic flowed from bats . But, as a new study shows, this ...
March 2024 global poverty update from the World Bank: first estimates
With more recent survey data, this March 2024 PIP update is the first to report a global poverty number for 2020-2022, the period of the COVID-19 pandemic. We estimate that COVID-19 increased extreme poverty in the world, as measured by the international poverty line of $2.15, from 8.9 percent in 2019 to 9.7 percent in 2020 (see Figure 1).
Patients with COVID-19 Infection and Stroke have Higher than Expected
Background COVID-19 infection is associated with thrombotic events; however, this phenomenon is poorly understood. Few studies have reported the association between COVID-19 and stroke in the hospital setting. Methods We retrospectively reviewed and characterized all patients who presented to a single, quaternary medical center between March and December 2020 (N=603). COVID-19 positive ...