Are these considered “COVID-related deaths” as well?
It’s certainly more honest than some of the deaths that have been attributed to COVID like gunshot wounds, car accidents, and complications from Parkinson’s disease. Just to name a few of the recent cases in Florida.
Back in April, ClashDaily reported that the United Nations was warning of “global famines of biblical proportions.”
You can read that article here:
Global Famines Of ‘Biblical Proportions’ Are Unexpected Consequences Of COVID Pandemic
Apparently they weren’t just fear-mongering. The Associated Press is reporting that the ongoing lockdowns, restrictions of movement, and joblessness resulting from COVID are having a devastating effect and is pushing some people in developing nations to the brink starvation–and sometimes right over the edge. Although some countries are doing better than they had been due to foreign aid, some are faring far worse.
The AP is reporting that as many as 10,000 kids per month are dying from malnutrition.
HOUNDE, Burkina Faso (AP) — The lean season is coming for Burkina Faso’s children. And this time, the long wait for the harvest is bringing a hunger more ferocious than most have ever known…
….All around the world, the coronavirus and its restrictions are pushing already hungry communities over the edge, cutting off meager farms from markets and isolating villages from food and medical aid. Virus-linked hunger is leading to the deaths of 10,000 more children a month over the first year of the pandemic, according to an urgent call to action from the United Nations shared with The Associated Press ahead of its publication in the Lancet medical journal.
Further, more than 550,000 additional children each month are being struck by what is called wasting, according to the U.N. — malnutrition that manifests in spindly limbs and distended bellies. Over a year, that’s up 6.7 million from last year’s total of 47 million. Wasting and stunting can permanently damage children physically and mentally, transforming individual tragedies into a generational catastrophe.
Watch the report that includes the story of one-month-old Haboue Solange Boue who was born underweight and her mother is so malnourished she cannot produce milk.
This is a significant shift in the trendline that saw steady progress in child morbidity rates globally since 1980.
The rise in child deaths worldwide would reverse global progress for the first time in decades. Deaths of children younger than 5 had declined steadily since 1980, to 5.3 million around the world in 2018, according to a UNICEF report. About 45 percent of the deaths were due to undernutrition…
…“By having schools closed, by having primary health care services disrupted, by having nutritional programs dysfunctional, we are also creating harm,” Aguayo said. He cited as an example the near-global suspension of Vitamin A supplements, which are a crucial way to bolster developing immune systems.
Although children are facing starvation in various parts of the world, those living in countries already in turmoil like Venezuela, Yemen, and Afghanistan are in incredibly challenging spots. Still, it is within sub-Saharan Africa that is facing the worst of the crisis.
In Sudan, 9.6 million people are living from one meal to the next in acute food insecurity — a 65% increase from the same time last year.
Lockdowns across Sudanese provinces, as around the world, have dried up work and incomes for millions. The global economic downturn has brought supply chains to a standstill, and restrictions on public transport have disrupted agricultural production. With inflation hitting 136%, prices for basic goods have more than tripled.
“It has never been easy but now we are starving, eating grass, weeds, just plants from the earth,” said Ibrahim Youssef, director of the Kalma camp for internally displaced people in war-ravaged south Darfur.
Source: Associated Press
It’s utterly heartbreaking.
It also puts things into perspective, doesn’t it?
Yes, here in North America we still have it pretty good.
But here’s the thing that the Associated Press isn’t reporting–foreign aid comes from Western countries. Charities–often Christian charities–are the boots on the ground delivering the necessities of life to people who are in need.
It is people from those countries where generous citizens take some of the wealth that they have created for themselves and donate it to causes of which they approve. What happens when lockdowns continue without end? Where will the donations come from? And if it’s government funding, well, it’s difficult to fund a government if you have more people receiving benefits than pay taxes.
In a way, it’s all connected. If we can open up and make money, we can give and help those who weren’t fortunate enough to live in the United States (or Canada, the U.K, Australia, etc.)–and that giving quite literally saves lives.
