The health experts have been saying for months that we need to stay home to save lives. That may be changing after a new report from the World Bank on the impact COVID 19 quarantine is having on global poverty. First off about 600,000 people have died worldwide with COVID 19
Poverty has killed much more. The World Health Organization estimates around 3-4 million children under the age of five die due to poverty most years.
The raw data says there are 700 million people living in poverty around the world according to the poverty clock.
The World Bank is projecting that if we don't open up the world economies we will see 70,000,000 people fall into extreme poverty and another 353 million fall into the category of living off $3-$5! In other words 423 million additional people!
That's more than every person in the U.S., Canada, Ireland, Norway, Finland, Denmark, Switzerland, Sweden, and Portugal combined who would be living on less than $5 a day.
It also means we would add 60% to the worldwide poverty rate this year! That means the expected deaths of another 2 million children! This doesn't add in early deaths of people over the age of 5 either, which no doubt would be in the millions!
Even in the U.S. a 2011 study from Columbia estimated that over 200,000 Americans die each year due to poverty. Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez made a passionate video yesterday explaining why crime is on a record upswing in NYC and many other major US cities the past few months. Her answer was unemployment and an increase in poverty. There has been 200 more murders in NYC as of the end of June than there had been for many years according to the NY Times. There were another 64 murders in that city last weekend. Another story from the NY Times last week says murder is up this year 16% in our 25 largest cities. So poverty is killing our citizens too!
The number 1 driver of the world economy is the United States which is about 60% larger than China and almost triple the 3rd largest economy, Japan.
The World Banks report is basically saying if we don't reopen then millions around the world will die mostly in Africa. Obviously there is no easy choice here as if we do open our economy then hundreds of thousands of our own citizens will in all likely hood get sick with the virus and many of them will die. But it's not as cut and dry as many people have made it seem, "stay home and save lives". Like many issues in life there are a lot of things that need to be considered.