view of the world before covid 19 essay

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Life before COVID-19: how was the World actually performing?

Salvatore f. pileggi.

1 School of Information, Systems and Modelling (ISM), University of Technology Sydney, Sydney, Australia

2 Centre on Persuasive Systems for Wise Adaptive Living (PERSWADE), University of Technology Sydney, Sydney, Australia

The COVID-19 pandemic has suddenly and deeply changed our lives in a way comparable with the most traumatic events in history, such as a World war. With millions of people infected around the World and already thousands of deaths, there is still a great uncertainty on the actual evolution of the crisis, as well as on the possible post-crisis scenarios, which depend on a number of key variables and factors (e.g. a treatment, a vaccine or some kind of immunity). Despite the optimism enforced by the positive results recently achieved to produce a vaccine, uncertainty is probably still somehow the predominant feeling. From a more philosophical perspective, the COVID-19 drama is also a kind of stress-test for our global system and, probably, an opportunity to reconsider some aspects underpinning it, as well as its sustainability. In this article we focus on the pre-crisis situation by combining a number of selected global indicators that are likely to represent measures of different aspects of life. How was the World actually performing? We have defined 6 macro-categories and inferred their relevance from different sources. Results show that economic-oriented priorities correspond to positive performances, while all other distributions point to a negative performance. Additionally, balanced and economy-focused distributions of weights propose an optimistic interpretation of performance regardless of the absolute score.

Introduction

The unpredictable and overwhelming COVID-19 pandemic has completely and radically changed our lives and lifestyle in a way comparable with the most traumatic events in history, such as a World war. With millions of people infected around the World and already thousands of deaths (Dong et al. 2020 ), there is still a great uncertainty on the actual evolving of the crisis, as well as on the possible post-crisis scenarios, which depend on a number of key variables and factors (e.g. a treatment Felsenstein et al. 2020 , a vaccine Le et al. 2020 or some kind of immunity Weitz et al. 2020 ). Despite the optimism enforced by the positive results recently achieved to produce a vaccine, uncertainty is probably still somehow the predominant feeling (Chater 2020 ).

The whole scientific community is currently committed to face the challenging situation and to provide solutions and mitigation plans as a response to the complex dynamics at different levels. Indeed, the actual impact of COVID-19 on the different aspects of life (e.g. socio-economic Bashir et al. 2020 , environmental Collivignarelli et al. 2020 and psycological Fofana et al. 2020 ) is still not completely clear. Even relatively obvious or largely predictable macro-effects, such as a huge economic recession, present great elements of uncertainty at the moment (Altig et al. 2020 ). Additionally, a large number of studies have been conducted to explore the role of different factors [e.g. temperature Jamil et al. 2020 and air pollution  Fattorini and Regoli ( 2020 )].

From a more philosophical perspective, the COVID-19 drama is also a kind of stress-test for our system and, probably, an opportunity to reconsider some aspects underpinning it, as well as its sustainability (Naidoo and Fisher 2020 ). However, in order to re-design the World and our lives accordingly, we should first of all fully understand them. We definitely recognise the importance of cultural factors, opinions, personal values and beliefs. At the same time, we believe that it would be valuable to understand global performance in a data-driven and relatively systematic way.

In this article we focus on the pre-crisis situation by combining a number of selected global indicators to represent macro-categories that are likely to represent measures of different aspects of life: how was the World actually performing before pandemic?

We believe that answering the previously stated research question by adopting a relatively unbiased and customizable analysis framework can first of all (1) contribute to have a concise understanding of global development evolution and its priorities in the pre-pandemic period; additionally, it should (2) facilitate a better holistic understanding of the post-pandemic scenario; last but not least, (3) a similar approach can be adopted to estimate and analyse more specific aspects (e.g. global or country resilience to pandemic).

Previous work and background This paper is based on the method proposed in Pileggi ( 2020 ) which adopts a Multi-Criteria Decision Analysis (MCDA) philosophy (Ishizaka and Nemery 2013 ; Velasquez and Hester 2013 ). That paper focuses on the method in itself, which is explained in detail and applied to a number of examples using real data. This work is conceptually different and addresses the result, as the method previously defined has been applied to concretely measure global performance from heterogeneous criteria with emphasis on sustainable development (Hopwood et al. 2005 ). The idea of indices in such an area (e.g. Bravo 2014 ; Shaker 2018 ; Barrera-Roldán and Saldıvar-Valdés 2002 ) is a well consolidated concept. Furthermore, many studies explicitely focus on underlying correlations (e.g. Shaker 2018 , 2015 ).

As discussed later on in the paper, the original method has been slightly modified for this concrete application: on one side, the definition of the categories and their relation with numerical indicators has been simplified (see Sect.  3.1 ); on the other side, some extension has been provided in the weighting phase to better model the trade-offs existing among the different aspects considered (see Sect.  4.1 ). Last but not least, the interpretation of computations has been better formalised (see Sect.  5 ).

Structure of the paper This introductory part is followed by a detailed description of the research methodology. Each of the three phases identified in the methodological section is object of one of the core sections which deal, respectively, with the selection of criteria (Sect.  3 ), the weighting of such criteria (Sect.  4 ) and the performance analysis based on the resulting computations (Sect.  5 ). The paper finishes with a typical conclusions and future work section.

Methodology and approach

The methodology adopted in this study is summarised in concept in Fig.  1 . The target system is modelled by selecting a number of categorised indicators, which are global indicators in this study. The model also assumes weights and semantics associated with indicators and it’s the input for the computational method (Pileggi 2020 ). Interpretations are based on both qualitative and quantitative metrics. The three main seamless phases are briefly discussed in this section both with key design decisions, possible biases and uncertainties.

Method in concept. The target system is modelled by a number of categorised indicators and by the weights and the semantics associated. Such a model is the input for the computational method. Results are analysed by adopting qualitative and quantitative metrics

Criteria selection: macro-categories and representative indicators The normal approach (adopted also in previous work (Pileggi 2020 ) as well as by many reputable studies and publications, such as Our World in Data ) is to group the different indicators in classes which represent, therefore, an abstracted categorization of the considered indicators. It is very useful, especially considering the great availability of data, dependencies and the need to consider multiple aspects together.

In the context of this work, we have defined a number of categories of interest, each one represented by one single indicator that should be chosen to effectively characterise the target category. In terms of model (Fig.  1 ), given M categories and N indicators, we are assuming N = M and cardinality 1:1. Such a simplification allows an easier weighting and modelling within the method adopted (Pileggi 2020 ). We are assuming the definition of categories and the selection of representative indicators as an intrinsic bias, which is referred to as selection bias . Additionally, as the different indicators are expressed by different units and scales which don’t necessarily reflect their relevance in the resulting system or model, we assume a second kind of bias called numerical bias . The latter will be further discussed in Sect.  3.1 .

Weighting Weighting the target categories or indicators is a critical step. Indeed, while indicators themselves may be considered objective measures, their weighting should reflect the different relevance/importance of the various criteria in the context of the considered system or model. Weights may be estimated in different ways. For instance, they may reflect the opinions within a given group or community, normally elicited by surveys or interviews. Alternatively, weights may be inferred by capturing input parameters by the users of tools that adopt the method (Pileggi 2020 ). Either ways, to be relevant, the weighting should be based on a significant number of samples. Moreover, in general, survey/interview defines a static approach as it is based on a concrete selection of indicators. Changing indicators implies the need to re-estimate weights. Such a process is very demanding and definitely it is not agile.

In this study we have adopted a more pragmatic and, at the same time, flexible approach to establish weights that are inferred by analysing reports on global priorities, issues or challenges. Although, due to the different intent and extent of the selected reports, it is not possible to define a systematic method to infer weights, this approach assures weighting according to different foci and perspectives. As proposed later on in the paper, the analysis of different reports leads to weight configurations that may vary very much from each other.

Last but not least, unlike in the original method, in this work we assume finite resource for weighting to better model the trade-offs raising in a limited resource world (see Sect.  4 ).

Computation and analysis The final step is the computation of the results based on the input as defined in the two previous phases. The computational method should support the systematic combination of heterogeneous indicators and associated semantics, measure uncertainty and biases, as well as provide a framework for the interpretation of results. Results based on the application of the original method (Pileggi 2020 ) with the modifications previously explained are discussed in Sect.  5 .

Categories and indicators

The very first logical step of the study assumes the definition of macro-categories and the consequent selection of representative indicators. Such a step is described in the following subsection, while Sect.  3.2 deals with numerical bias and its minimization.

Inspired by Our World in Data , we have defined our own marco-categories (summary in Table  1 ) reflecting different aspects of life as follows:

• Environment/sustainability Several indicators might represent this macro-category as either global environmental measures (e.g. temperature anomaly or CO2 emissions) or indicators in sub-categories (e.g. energy) potentially express the performance trend. In the context of this work, we consider temperature anomaly (Morice et al. 2012 ; Ritchie and Roser 2017 ) as a representative indicator which we want, evidently, to decrease.
• Health/demographic change Life expectancy (Temperature 2020 ; Riley 2005 ; Zijdeman and Ribeira da Silva 2005 ; Max Roser and Ritchie 2013 ) has been selected to represent this macro-category. Indeed, an increasing life expectancy reflects, normally, an improved healthcare, as well as it implies population increasing. In terms of wished trend, we want life expectancy to increase, although an higher population may have negative implications in terms of global sustainability.
• Economy It is represented by the classic GDP per capita (World Development Indicators, Roser 2013b ), as more sophisticated indicators (e.g. Economic Complexity Index Hausmann et al. 2014 ) are normally understood at a country level and might be not very indicative if considered globally. The GDP represents somehow an economical model that assumes never ending growing. The impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on global economy is expected to be much more consistent than in recent crisis (Kotz 2009 ) and to be comparable with the second World war.
• Poverty/inequality We consider that the number of people living in extreme poverty (Roser and Ortiz-Ospina 2013 ; Ravallion 2015 ) is the ideal measure to properly integrate economic indicators that express a generic increasing well-being by introducing the concept of inequality. Although we recognise an intrinsic interdependency, we prefer to keep this category separated from the previous one as we want to be able to differentiate ideas and concerns related to the economic growth in itself from the others that explicitly address poverty and inequality.
• Human rights/freedom By considering democracy as one of the most relevant achievements of all times, we believe that the number of people living in democracy (Roser 2013a ) may be an effective representative for human rights and, more in general, freedom. Indeed, we consider democracy as a condition necessary (although not always sufficient) to create a socio-political environment in which individual freedom and human rights are likely to be fully respected.
• Violence/instability The selection of a single indicator to express violence and instability in general terms is not easy. Looking at recent happenings, we consider that measures related to terrorism (Ritchie et al. 2013 ) may be a very reasonable choice. From one side, it’s not always easy to understand terrorism and classify terrorist attacks according to the same criteria worldwide. However, a clear definition for terrorism and a number of unanimously recognised principles currently exist (Ritchie et al. 2013 ). Terrorism is normally generated by situations of war or local conflict and it definitely causes uncertainty, violence and instability.

Summary of the criteria considered in this study

Each criterion is understood as a macro-category associated with a representative indicator adopted in computations and with an associated wished trend

All indicators selected are based on objective measures, while others that result from perceptions or opinions (e.g. happiness Frey and Stutzer 2012 ) have not been included.

For the numerical analysis proposed in the paper, we are considering recent years and, more concretely, the time range 2000–2015. Unfortunately, it is not possible to include in the study later years as the indicator measuring people currently living in democracy is available only up to 2015. As per previous explanations, we consider such an indicator as very relevant for the extent and the intent of this research, so we prefer to keep it and reduce the target time range. Additionally, the indicator on people living in extreme poverty is measured at a different granularity of all others, which are available by year. We have indeed adopted approximations considering the available values for the years 2002, 2005, 2008, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013 and 2015.

In terms of wished trends (Table  1 ), we want the temperature anomaly, people living in poverty and deaths caused by terrorism to decrease, while an increasing trend is wanted for life expectancy, people living in democracy and GDP. The actual trends in the considered time range is shown in Fig.  2 on the left. In the same figure, the contribution to global performance by considering the wished trends (Pileggi 2020 ) is shown on the right. According to this view, positive trends in the chart contributes positively to global performance. Likewise, negative trends have a negative impact on the performance.

Selected indicators expressed as the percentage of variation with respect to the initial state (left). The contribution of the different indicators to performance as the function of the associated wished trend is reported on the right

Looking at the data reported, health/demographics, economy, poverty/inequality and freedom/human rights are positively performing. On the other side, environment/sustainability and violence/instability present strongly negative performance.

Dealing with numerical bias

At a more theoretical level, the definition of a restricted number of meaningful categories in the extent and intent of the current study can be considered a kind of bias in itself. It’s somehow inherent in study design.

At a practical level, it is almost impossible to provide a numerically balanced set of indicators. Indeed, indicators are normally very heterogeneous, adopts their own units of measure and may present very different numerical variations. In general, the variation of a given indicator is not comparable in terms of relevance with the variation of another indicators. Therefore, numerical proportions are not semantically relevant for the purpose of the considered study, meaning that numerical variations are not necessarily proportional with the relevance in the system or model.

We have represented all indicators uniformly as the percentage variation with respect to the initial state. As shown in Fig.  2 , for the considered set of indicators, the variation of deaths by terrorism is numerically much more relevant than any other. Also the temperature anomaly presents a strong pattern in this sense. However, it is not numerically comparable with the previous. As both indicators contribute potentially in a negative way on global performance, the resulting indicator framework is strongly biased (numerically) in this case and may affect the fairness of the computation.

The numerical differences among the considered indicators imply the need to deal with different scales when computing the different aspects together. In order to minimise numerical biases, we adopt the mechanism described in Pileggi ( 2020 ) in addition to weighting. A detailed description of such an adaptive mechanism is out of the scope of the paper. An example of the numerical bias using and not using the mechanism is reported in Fig.  3 .

Visualization of numerical bias by considering a linear combination of the different criteria by adopting the reference computational method (Pileggi 2020 ) (left). Such numerical bias can be reduced by applying adaptive tuning as per reference method (Pileggi 2020 ) (right)

Once target criteria are defined, the weighting stage may result extremely subjective. The most natural way to weight criteria is probably by survey, as it is relatively simple to map weights into an opinion-based survey. In such a way, opinions from a generic public as well as opinions within defined communities may be captured and converted in a corresponding set of weights.

However, capturing people’s opinions in a meaningful way requires a large number of samples. Therefore, we have preferred to adopt a completely different and more pragmatic approach that aims to infer weights from the analysis of popular reports (e.g. from United Nations 1 and Global Economic Forum 2 ). On one side, the simplified approach adopted in the selection phase allows to weight categories rather than single indicators. It makes the mapping much easier. On the other side, the interpretation of certain kind of report may be subjective.

In the following subsections, we first describe an extension to the reference method to better model existing trade-offs and, then, we discuss the inference of weight sets from different sources of information.

Finite-resource assumption to model trade-offs

The original method (Pileggi 2020 ) doesn’t assume specific constraints for weights: the different indicators are weighted independently within a minimum value W min and a maximum value W max . Thus, any indicator i is associated with the corresponding weight W min ⩽ w i ⩽ W max , for instance in a range [0,10].

That independent weighting intrinsically assumes an infinite resource model. For instance, it is possible to associate the maximum weight with all indicators ( w i = W max , ∀ i ). It doesn’t force decisions which should model the trade-offs existing among the different aspects of life. In order to model such trade-offs in a more effective way, we introduce a constraint for the overall weighting value, W tot = ∑ i = 1 n w i ≤ n k , where n is the number of considered criteria and k is a value between W min and W max . In the context of this work we are using six different criteria ( n = 6 ) and weighting in the range [1,10] ( 1 ≤ w i ≤ 10 , ∀ i ) rather than [0,10] as we want all criteria to contribute to overall performance. We consider k = 5 , which implies W tot = 30 .

Weighting based on report analysis

In this sub-section we propose different weightings based on the analysis of different sources of information. As previously explained, probably such an inference cannot be completely objective. In order to minimise the impact of interpretations and biases in the analysis, for each case considered, the criteria and conclusions are explained and briefly discussed. Additionally, we have restricted the analysis to sources of information that allow a relative easy mapping. We have excluded those sources that potentially provide very good insight but are objectively hard to be converted in a clear weight set to the target criteria.

A summary of the weights produced by analysing the different reports is proposed in Fig.  4 . Each case is separately analysed and explained in the remaining part of this sub-section.

Weighting based on the analysis of different sources. Each weights set is compared with an homogeneous distribution of the resources—i.e. Neutral Weighting

Weighting based on the analysis of UN Global Issues The UN Global Issues report proposes 22 different global issues. Each issue in the report can be associated to no-one, one or more than one of the categories identified in this study.

According to our analysis, the category Environment/Sustainability is associated with 5 issues from the report (Atomic Energy, Climate Change, Food, Water), Health/Demography with 5 issues (Africa, Ageing, AIDS, Health, Population), Economy with no issue directly, Poverty/Inequality with 6 issues (Africa, Children, Decolonization, Ending Poverty, Food, Water), Human Rights/Freedom with 6 issues (Africa, Democracy, Gender Equality, Human Rights, International Law and Justice, Refugees) and Violence/Instability with 2 issues (Africa, Peace&Security). Resulting weights are reported in Table  2 . As previously discussed, the minimum weight assumed is 1.

Weighting based on UN Global Issues

Weighting based on the analysis of WEF 10 biggest global challenges (2016) The WEF 10 biggest global challenges [8] is a report with a much more economic focus. The criteria to map the 10 challenges in the report into weights are the same as in the previous case.

From our analysis, Environment/Sustainability is directly related to 2 challenges (Food Security, Climate Change), Health/Demographics to 1 challenge (Healthcare), Economy to 5 challenges (Inclusive Growth, Unemployment, Financial Crisis, Global Trade, Investment Strategy), Poverty/Inequality to 2 challenges (Food Security, Inclusive Growth), Human Rights/Freedom to 1 challenge (Gender Equality) and Violence/Instability to no challenge. The resulting weighing is reported in Table  3 .

Weighting based on WEF—10 biggest global challenges

Weighting based on the analysis of 10 most important global issues from The Borgen Project The Borgen Project, a nonprofit organization that is addressing poverty and hunger, has provided a list of 10 most important global issues [5].

According to our analysis of such a source, Environment/Sustainability is directly associated with 3 of the 10 issues (Climate Change, Pollution), Health/Demographics with 4 (Pollution, Security and Wellbeing, Malnourishment and Hunger, Substance Abuse), Economy with 1 (Unemployment), Poverty/Inequality with 3 (Lack of Education, Malnourishment and Hunger, Security and Wellbeing), Human Rights/Freedom with 1 (Government Corruption) and Violence/Instability with 3 (Violence, Security and Wellbeing, Terrorism). The resulting weights are reported in Table  4 .

Weighting based on The Borgen Project—Top 10 most important current Global Issues

Weighting based on the analysis of Global Shapers Survey 2017 Global Shapers Survey 2017 by WEF reflects opinion of millennials. Business Insider Australia has recently provided a list of the 10 most critical problems in the World according to millennials based on the Global Shapers Survey. In order to assure uniformity and consistency with previous cases, we have considered the list of problems provided but not the relevance associated with each of them.

According to our analysis, Environment/Sustainability matches with 2 problems (Food and water security, Climate change/Destruction of nature), Health/Demographics with 1 (Safety/Security/Wellbeing), Economy with 1 (Lack of economic opportunity and unemployment), Poverty/Inequality with 4 (Lack of education, Food and water security, Poverty, Inequality), Human Rights/Freedom with 1 (Government accountability and transparency/Corruption) and Violence/Instability with 3 (Safety/Security/Wellbeing, Religious conflicts, Large scale conflict/Wars ). Weights are reported in Table  5 .

Weighting based on Global Shapers Survey 2017 and its analysis

Performance analysis

Performance analysis is based on two main metrics as follows:

• Score This is the primary metric for analysis and it is based uniquely on the absolute performance according to computations (Pileggi 2020 ): positive scores are associated with positive performance, as well as negative scores correspond to negative performance.
• Interpretation It is a relative metric defined by comparing the score of a given computation with the corresponding neutral computation, which assumes fair weighting (Pileggi 2020 ). In qualitative terms, scores higher than neutral computation correspond to an optimistic interpretation, while lower scores are associated with a pessimistic interpretation.

The two metrics as defined are completely independent as all qualitative combinations of the two metrics (positive/optimistic, positive/pessimistic, negative/optimistic and negative/pessimistic) are possible.

Looking at the analysis framework more holistically, two additional analysis factors may be considered:

• Uncertainty In the context of this study, rather than a proper uncertainty, such a metric defines higher and lower bounds based on the potential weighting variance. Such an estimation provides a more consistent support for analysis in context.
• Numerical bias Even though it is limited by the method adopted, numerical bias directly affects the absolute result. It is expressed by the neutral computation and can play a relevant role not only in the analysis phase but also when selecting criteria, as it can drive the selection of balanced set of indicators.

Computations for the different weight sets are presented in Fig.  5 , while a qualitative summary of results is presented in Table  6 .

Summary of results (qualitative)

For each computation, the qualitative score—i.e. POSITIVE/NEGATIVE —and the qualitative interpretation—i.e. OPTIMISTIC/PESSIMISTIC —is reported

Computations based on the different weight sets. On the left, computed results assuming a given weights set are compared with the corresponding assuming homogeneous weighting ( Neutral Weighting ). On the right, results are considered looking at the extreme possible computations

Looking at Fig.  5 , the score associated with the different weight sets is represented by the blue line. Such a score is compared with the corresponding neutral computations in the charts on the left, while it is represented both with extreme computations in the charts on the right.

Weights from the analysis of UN Global Issues propose a relatively balanced distribution with a priority on Poverty/Inequality, Human Rights/Freedom, Health/Demographics and Environment/Sustainability. Additionally, there is a relative low priority for Violence/Instability and no economical focus. The resulting computation shows contrasting results, including a negative performance but also an optimistic interpretation. The weight set resulting from the analysis of the 10 biggest global challenges by WEF presents a much more economic oriented focus with a significant attention also for Environment/Sustainability and Poverty/Inequality. Human Rights/Freedom is still considered a kind of priority, while there is no explicit attention for Violence/Instability. Such a distribution of weights result in a very positive understanding of global performance. By focusing explicitly on addressing poverty, the weights from The Borgen Project proposes an interesting case study. The priority is clearly on 3 criteria, Health/Demographics, Poverty/Inequality and Violence/Instability. The computations associated show a clear negative trend in terms of either performance and interpretation (pessimistic). The analysis based on opinions of Millennials proposes a much more radical distribution with a clear priority on Poverty/Inequality and a significant attention on Environment/Sustainability and Violence/Instability. Final results are very similar to the ones related to the previous case (negative/pessimistic).

Average weights are reported in the last chart in Fig.  4 . As shown, the different case studies considered seem to balance each other. The average case proposes however a priority on Poverty/Inequality. Computations for the average case point out negative performance and optimistic interpretation (Fig. ​ (Fig.6 6 ).

Computation based on average weights. On the left, the computed result adopting average weighs is compared with the corresponding assuming homogeneous weighting ( Neutral Weighting ). On the right, that same result is considered looking at the extreme possible computations

As expected, the priorities defined by the different weight sets play a key role in the final assessment of performance from a quantitative perspective. However, as shown, it’s the contextual interpretation of such metrics that is considered the final assessment. We believe that the research framework proposed can be simple and effective to assess holistically the post-pandemic scenario, as well as to properly assess and reflect mindset and priorities changes behind the numerical estimations or measures.

Looking at possible interpretations of the results, we would like to remark that the method adopted works in terms of dynamic trend rather than of static snapshot, according to a philosophy of continuous evolution of the World. Such an approach is reflected in the computation of metrics. Therefore, a positive score in a given time-frame should be understood like the World is becoming a better place rather than the World is a good place (Pileggi 2020 ).

Conclusions and future work

By adopting a MCDA-based method, we considered 6 different macro-categories to measure global performance. The method provides a relatively fair analysis framework which allows the systematic combination of heterogeneous criteria. The weights associated with the different criteria play a key role in terms of final result. We have adopted a model that assumes finite resource in order to empathize the trade-offs existing among the different aspects considered.

In order to assess global performance and, more in general, global development trends, we have considered four different case studies with a very different focus. Results show that economic-oriented priorities correspond to positive performances, while all other distributions point to a negative performance. Additionally, balanced and economy-focused distributions of weights propose an optimistic interpretation of performance regardless of the absolute score.

Future work is expected to be developed in different directions. In line with the current focus, we will aim more fine grained studies at a country level. We will explore further secondary data sources to infer priorities accordingly (e.g. World Values Survey — http://www.worldvaluessurvey.org/ ). We will also propose and analyse in context additional case studies with a more community-oriented focus to be established by survey (e.g. Danowski and Park 2020 ).

The results obtained contribute to provide a concise understanding in context of the global development evolution and its underpinning priorities in the pre-pandemic period. We believe that such a dynamic snapshot can be useful to facilitate a better holistic understanding of the post-pandemic scenario that will be object of our future research. Indeed, we expect a significant mindset change triggered by the pandemic that will probably have an impact in setting priorities for a sustainable development. Last but not least, we will adopt a similar approach to estimate and analyse more specific aspects (e.g. global or country resilience to pandemic).

Acknowledgements

Our most sincere gratitude to the anonymous reviewers who provided extensive and constructive feedback. The comments received were very valuable to produce a significantly improved version of the paper.

1 United Nations— https://www.un.org/en/ .

2 World Economic Forum— https://www.weforum.org .

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The world before this coronavirus and after cannot be the same

Professor of Globalisation and Development; Director of the Oxford Martin Programme on Technological and Economic Change, University of Oxford

Lecturer, Pontifícia Universidade Católica do Rio de Janeiro (PUC-Rio)

Disclosure statement

Ian Goldin is Professor of Globalisation and Development at Oxford University and the author of The Butterfly Defect and Age of Discovery. He has co-authored a forthcoming book Terra Incognita with Robert Muggah. It is due to be published by Penguin. @ian_goldin

Robert Muggah is the co-founder of the Igarape Institute and a principal of the SecDev Group and a regular contributor to TED and several major news outlets. His forthcoming book, Terra Incognita, co-authored with Ian Goldin, is due to be published by Penguin later in 2020.

University of Oxford provides funding as a member of The Conversation UK.

Pontifícia Universidade Católica do Rio de Janeiro (PUC-Rio) provides support as an endorsing partner of The Conversation BR.

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With COVID-19 infections now evident in 176 countries , the pandemic is the most significant threat to humanity since the second world war. Then, as now, confidence in international cooperation and institutions plumbed new lows.

While the onset of the second world war took many people by surprise, the outbreak of the coronavirus in December 2019 was a crisis foretold. Infectious disease specialists have been raising the alarm about the accelerated pace of outbreaks for decades. Dengue, Ebola, SARS, H1N1, and Zika are just the tip of the iceberg. Since 1980, more than 12,000 documented outbreaks have infected and killed tens of millions of people around the world, many of them the poorest of the poor. In 2018, the World Health Organisation (WHO) detected outbreaks of six of its eight “priority diseases” for the very first time.

No one can say we weren’t warned .

Even as we attend to the countless emergencies generated by COVID-19, we need to think deeply about why the international community was so unprepared for an outbreak that was so inevitable. This is hardly the first time we’ve faced global catastrophes.

The second world war reflected the catastrophic failure of leaders to learn the lessons of the 1914-1918 war. The creation of the United Nations and Bretton Woods institutions in the late 1940s and early 1950s provided some grounds for optimism, but these were overshadowed by the Cold War. Moreover, the Reagan and Thatcher revolutions of the 1980s rolled back the capacity of governments to address inequality through taxation and redistribution and governments’ ability to deliver health and essential services.

The capacity of international institutions to regulate globalisation was undermined precisely at a time when they were most needed. The 1980s, 1990s and 2000s were a period of rapidly rising cross-border movements of trade, finance and people. The accelerated flow of goods, services and skills is one of the principal reasons for the most rapid reduction of global poverty in history. Since the late 1990s, more than 2 billion people have climbed out of extreme poverty. Improved access to employment, nutrition, sanitation and public health, including vaccine availability, added over a decade in average life expectancy to the world’s population.

But international institutions failed to manage the downside risks generated by globalisation.

Far from empowering the United Nations, the world is governed by divided nations , who prefer to go it alone, starving the institutions designed to safeguard our future of the necessary resources and authority. The WHO shareholders, not its personnel, have failed dismally to ensure it can exercise its vital mandate to protect global health.

Butterfly defect

As the world becomes more connected, it also necessarily becomes more interdependent. This is the dark underbelly, the butterfly defect of globalisation, that if left unmanaged inevitably means that we will suffer escalating, increasingly dangerous systemic risks.

One of the most graphic demonstrations was the 2008 financial crisis. The economic meltdown reflected a dangerous negligence by public authorities and experts in managing the growing complexities of the global financial system. Not surprisingly, the carelessness of the world’s political and economic elite cost them dearly at the ballot box. Campaigning on an explicitly anti-globalisation and anti-expert ticket, populists stormed to power.

Emboldened by public outrage, they have followed an ancient tradition, blaming foreigners and turning their backs on the outside world. The US president, in particular , spurned scientific thinking, spawned fake news, and shunned traditional allies and international institutions.

With evidence of infections rising fast, most national politicians now recognise the traumatic human and economic costs of COVID-19. The Centers for Disease Control’s worst-case scenario is that about 160 million to 210 million Americans will be infected by December 2020. As many as 21 million will need hospitalisation and between 200,000 and 1.7 million people could die within a year. Harvard University researchers believe that 20% to 60% of the global population could be infected , and conservatively estimate that 14 million to 42 million people might lose their lives.

The extent to which direct and excess mortality is prevented depends on how quickly societies can reduce new infections, isolate the sick and mobilise health services, and on how long relapses can be prevented and contained. Without a vaccine, COVID-19 will be a hugely disruptive force for years.

Where the damage will be worst

The pandemic will be especially damaging to poorer and more vulnerable communities within many countries, highlighting the risks associated with rising inequality .

In the US, over 60% of the adult population suffers from a chronic disease. Around one in eight Americans live below the poverty line – more than three-quarters of them live from paycheque to paycheque and over 44 million people in the US have no health coverage at all.

The challenges are even more dramatic in Latin America, Africa and South Asia, where health systems are considerably weaker and governments less able to respond. These latent risks are compounded by the failure of leaders such as Jair Bolsonaro in Brazil or Narendra Modi in India to take the issue seriously enough.

The economic fallout from COVID-19 will be dramatic everywhere. The severity of the impacts depends on how long the pandemic lasts, and the national and international response of governments. But even in the best case it will far exceed that of the 2008 economic crisis in its scale and global impact, leading to losses which could exceed $9 trillion , or well over 10% of global GDP.

In poor communities where many individuals share a single room and depend on going to work to put food on the table, the call for social isolation will be very difficult if not impossible to adhere to. Around the world, as individuals lose their incomes, we should expect rapidly rising homelessness and hunger.

In the US a record 3.3 million people have already filed for unemployment benefit, and across Europe unemployment similarly is reaching record levels. But whereas in the richer countries some safety net exists, even though it is too often in tatters, poor countries simply do not have the capacity to ensure that no-one dies of hunger.

With supply chains broken as factories close and workers are quarantined, and consumers prevented from travelling, shopping, other than for food, or engaging in social activities, there is no scope for a fiscal stimulus. Meanwhile monetary policy has been stymied as interest rates are already close to zero. Governments therefore should focus on providing all in need with a basic income , to ensure that no-one starves as a result of the crisis. While the concept of basic income guarantees seemed utopian only a month ago, it now needs to be at the centre of every government’s agenda.

A global Marshall plan

The sheer scale and ferocity of the pandemic demands bold proposals. Some European governments have announced packages of measures to keep their economies from grinding to a halt. In the UK, the government has agreed to cover 80% of wages and self-employed income, up to £2,500 ($2,915) per month , and is providing a lifeline to firms. In the US, a previously unthinkable aid package of $2 trillion has been agreed, though this is likely just the beginning. A gathering of G20 leaders also resulted in a pledge of $5 trillion , though details are slim.

The COVID-19 pandemic provides a turning point in national and global affairs. It demonstrates our interdependence and that when risks arise we turn to governments, not the private sector, to save us.

The unprecedented economic and medical response in the rich countries is simply not available to many developing countries. As a result the tragic implication is the consequences will be far more severe and long lasting in poorer countries. Progress in development and democracy in many African, Latin American and Asian societies will be reversed. Like climate and other risks, this global pandemic will dramatically worsen inequality within and between countries.

A global Marshall plan, with massive injections of funding, is urgently needed to sustain governments and societies.

The COVID-19 pandemic is not the death knell of globalisation, as some commentators have suggested. While travel and trade are frozen during the pandemic, there will be a contraction or deglobalisation. In the longer term the continued growth in incomes in Asia, which is home to two-thirds of the world’s population, is likely to mean that travel, trade and financial flows will resume their upward trajectory.

But in terms of physical flows, 2019 will likely go down in history as the time of peak supply chain fragmentation. The pandemic will accelerate the reshoring of production, reinforcing a trend of bringing production closer to markets that was already under way. The growth of robotics, artificial intelligence and 3D printing, together with customers expecting quick delivery of increasingly customised products, politicians eager to bring production home, and businesses seeking to minimise the price of machines, removes the comparative advantages of low-income countries.

It is not only manufacturing which is being automated, but also services such as call centres and administrative processes that now can be more cheaply done by computers in the basement of a headquarters than by people at distant locations. This poses profound questions about the future of work everywhere. It is a particular challenge for low income countries with a young population of work seekers. Africa alone expects 100 million workers to enter the labour market over the next 10 years. Their prospects were unclear before the pandemic struck. Now they are even more precarious.

Implications for political stability

At a time when faith in democracy is at its lowest point in decades , deteriorating economic conditions will have far-reaching implications for political and social stability. There is already a tremendous trust gap between leaders and citizens. Some political leaders are sending mixed signals and citizens are receiving conflicting messages. This reinforces their lack of trust in public authorities and “the experts”.

This lack of trust can make responding to the crisis much more difficult at the national level, and also has undermined the global response to the pandemic.

While making urgent calls for multilateral cooperation , the United Nations is still missing in action, having been sidelined by the major powers in recent years. Promising to inject billions – even trillions – into the response , the World Bank and International Monetary Fund will need to ramp up their activities to have a meaningful impact.

Owing to a shortage of international leadership from the US, cities, businesses and philanthropies are stepping up. China has gone from villain to hero in responding to the pandemic, partly by extending its soft power – in the form of doctors and equipment – to affected countries. Singaporean, South Korean, Chinese, Taiwanese, Italian, French and Spanish researchers are actively publishing and sharing their experience, including by fast-tracking research on what works.

So far, some of the most inspiring action is nongovernmental. For example, city networks such as the US Conference of Mayors and National League of Cities are rapidly sharing good practice on how to keep infectious diseases from spreading, which should improve local responses. The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation contributed $100 million to expanding local health capacities in Africa and South Asia. Groups like Wellcome Trust , Skoll , the Open Society Foundations , the UN Foundation , and Google.org are also scaling up assistance.

Needless to say, the complexities of globalisation will not be resolved by appeals to nationalism and closed borders. The spread of COVID-19 must be met with a similarly coordinated international effort to find vaccines, mobilise medical supplies and, when the volcanic dust settles, to ensure that we never again face what could be an even deadlier disease.

Now is not the time for recriminations: it is the time for action. National and city governments , businesses, and ordinary citizens around the world must do everything they can to flatten the epidemic curve immediately, following the examples set by Singapore, South Korea, Hong Kong, Hangzhou and Taiwan.

Coalition of the willing must lead global response

Now more than ever, we need a comprehensive global response. The Group of Seven and G20 leading economies appear rudderless under their current leadership. While promising to ensure attention to the poorest countries and to refugees, their recent virtual meeting offered too little too late. But this cannot be allowed to stop others acting to mitigate the impact of COVID-19. In partnership with G20 nations, a creative coalition of willing countries should take urgent steps to restore confidence not just in the markets but in global institutions.

The European Union, China and other nations will have to step up and lead a global effort, dragging the US into a global response which includes accelerating vaccine trials and ensuring free distribution once a vaccine and antivirals are found. Governments around the world will also need to take dramatic action toward massive investments in health, sanitation and basic income.

Eventually, we will get over this crisis. But too many people will have died, the economy will be severely scarred, and the threat of pandemics will remain. The priority then must be not only recovery, but also establishing a robust multilateral mechanism for ensuring that a similar or even worse pandemic never again arises.

There is no wall high enough that will keep out the next pandemic, or indeed any of the other great threats to our future. But what these high walls will keep out is the technologies, people, finance and most of all the collective ideas and will to cooperate that we need to address pandemics, climate change, antibiotic resistance, terror and other global threats.

The world Before Coronavirus and After Coronavirus cannot be the same. We must avoid the mistakes made throughout the 20th and early 21st centuries by undertaking fundamental reforms to ensure that we never again face the threat of pandemics.

If we can work together within our countries to prioritise the needs of all our citizens, and internationally to overcome the divides that have allowed the threats of pandemics to fester, out of the terrible fire of this pandemic a new world order could be forged. By learning to cooperate we would not only have learnt to stop the next pandemic, but also to address climate change and other critical threats.

Now is the time to start building the necessary bridges at home and abroad.

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COVID-19: Where we’ve been, where we are, and where we’re going

One of the hardest things to deal with in this type of crisis is being able to go the distance. Moderna CEO Stéphane Bancel

Where we're going

Living with covid-19, people & organizations, sustainable, inclusive growth, related collection.

The Next Normal: Emerging stronger from the coronavirus pandemic

I Thought We’d Learned Nothing From the Pandemic. I Wasn’t Seeing the Full Picture

M y first home had a back door that opened to a concrete patio with a giant crack down the middle. When my sister and I played, I made sure to stay on the same side of the divide as her, just in case. The 1988 film The Land Before Time was one of the first movies I ever saw, and the image of the earth splintering into pieces planted its roots in my brain. I believed that, even in my own backyard, I could easily become the tiny Triceratops separated from her family, on the other side of the chasm, as everything crumbled into chaos.

Some 30 years later, I marvel at the eerie, unexpected ways that cartoonish nightmare came to life – not just for me and my family, but for all of us. The landscape was already covered in fissures well before COVID-19 made its way across the planet, but the pandemic applied pressure, and the cracks broke wide open, separating us from each other physically and ideologically. Under the weight of the crisis, we scattered and landed on such different patches of earth we could barely see each other’s faces, even when we squinted. We disagreed viciously with each other, about how to respond, but also about what was true.

Recently, someone asked me if we’ve learned anything from the pandemic, and my first thought was a flat no. Nothing. There was a time when I thought it would be the very thing to draw us together and catapult us – as a capital “S” Society – into a kinder future. It’s surreal to remember those early days when people rallied together, sewing masks for health care workers during critical shortages and gathering on balconies in cities from Dallas to New York City to clap and sing songs like “Yellow Submarine.” It felt like a giant lightning bolt shot across the sky, and for one breath, we all saw something that had been hidden in the dark – the inherent vulnerability in being human or maybe our inescapable connectedness .

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But it turns out, it was just a flash. The goodwill vanished as quickly as it appeared. A couple of years later, people feel lied to, abandoned, and all on their own. I’ve felt my own curiosity shrinking, my willingness to reach out waning , my ability to keep my hands open dwindling. I look out across the landscape and see selfishness and rage, burnt earth and so many dead bodies. Game over. We lost. And if we’ve already lost, why try?

Still, the question kept nagging me. I wondered, am I seeing the full picture? What happens when we focus not on the collective society but at one face, one story at a time? I’m not asking for a bow to minimize the suffering – a pretty flourish to put on top and make the whole thing “worth it.” Yuck. That’s not what we need. But I wondered about deep, quiet growth. The kind we feel in our bodies, relationships, homes, places of work, neighborhoods.

Like a walkie-talkie message sent to my allies on the ground, I posted a call on my Instagram. What do you see? What do you hear? What feels possible? Is there life out here? Sprouting up among the rubble? I heard human voices calling back – reports of life, personal and specific. I heard one story at a time – stories of grief and distrust, fury and disappointment. Also gratitude. Discovery. Determination.

Among the most prevalent were the stories of self-revelation. Almost as if machines were given the chance to live as humans, people described blossoming into fuller selves. They listened to their bodies’ cues, recognized their desires and comforts, tuned into their gut instincts, and honored the intuition they hadn’t realized belonged to them. Alex, a writer and fellow disabled parent, found the freedom to explore a fuller version of herself in the privacy the pandemic provided. “The way I dress, the way I love, and the way I carry myself have both shrunk and expanded,” she shared. “I don’t love myself very well with an audience.” Without the daily ritual of trying to pass as “normal” in public, Tamar, a queer mom in the Netherlands, realized she’s autistic. “I think the pandemic helped me to recognize the mask,” she wrote. “Not that unmasking is easy now. But at least I know it’s there.” In a time of widespread suffering that none of us could solve on our own, many tended to our internal wounds and misalignments, large and small, and found clarity.

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I wonder if this flourishing of self-awareness is at least partially responsible for the life alterations people pursued. The pandemic broke open our personal notions of work and pushed us to reevaluate things like time and money. Lucy, a disabled writer in the U.K., made the hard decision to leave her job as a journalist covering Westminster to write freelance about her beloved disability community. “This work feels important in a way nothing else has ever felt,” she wrote. “I don’t think I’d have realized this was what I should be doing without the pandemic.” And she wasn’t alone – many people changed jobs , moved, learned new skills and hobbies, became politically engaged.

Perhaps more than any other shifts, people described a significant reassessment of their relationships. They set boundaries, said no, had challenging conversations. They also reconnected, fell in love, and learned to trust. Jeanne, a quilter in Indiana, got to know relatives she wouldn’t have connected with if lockdowns hadn’t prompted weekly family Zooms. “We are all over the map as regards to our belief systems,” she emphasized, “but it is possible to love people you don’t see eye to eye with on every issue.” Anna, an anti-violence advocate in Maine, learned she could trust her new marriage: “Life was not a honeymoon. But we still chose to turn to each other with kindness and curiosity.” So many bonds forged and broken, strengthened and strained.

Instead of relying on default relationships or institutional structures, widespread recalibrations allowed for going off script and fortifying smaller communities. Mara from Idyllwild, Calif., described the tangible plan for care enacted in her town. “We started a mutual-aid group at the beginning of the pandemic,” she wrote, “and it grew so quickly before we knew it we were feeding 400 of the 4000 residents.” She didn’t pretend the conditions were ideal. In fact, she expressed immense frustration with our collective response to the pandemic. Even so, the local group rallied and continues to offer assistance to their community with help from donations and volunteers (many of whom were originally on the receiving end of support). “I’ve learned that people thrive when they feel their connection to others,” she wrote. Clare, a teacher from the U.K., voiced similar conviction as she described a giant scarf she’s woven out of ribbons, each representing a single person. The scarf is “a collection of stories, moments and wisdom we are sharing with each other,” she wrote. It now stretches well over 1,000 feet.

A few hours into reading the comments, I lay back on my bed, phone held against my chest. The room was quiet, but my internal world was lighting up with firefly flickers. What felt different? Surely part of it was receiving personal accounts of deep-rooted growth. And also, there was something to the mere act of asking and listening. Maybe it connected me to humans before battle cries. Maybe it was the chance to be in conversation with others who were also trying to understand – what is happening to us? Underneath it all, an undeniable thread remained; I saw people peering into the mess and narrating their findings onto the shared frequency. Every comment was like a flare into the sky. I’m here! And if the sky is full of flares, we aren’t alone.

I recognized my own pandemic discoveries – some minor, others massive. Like washing off thick eyeliner and mascara every night is more effort than it’s worth; I can transform the mundane into the magical with a bedsheet, a movie projector, and twinkle lights; my paralyzed body can mother an infant in ways I’d never seen modeled for me. I remembered disappointing, bewildering conversations within my own family of origin and our imperfect attempts to remain close while also seeing things so differently. I realized that every time I get the weekly invite to my virtual “Find the Mumsies” call, with a tiny group of moms living hundreds of miles apart, I’m being welcomed into a pocket of unexpected community. Even though we’ve never been in one room all together, I’ve felt an uncommon kind of solace in their now-familiar faces.

Hope is a slippery thing. I desperately want to hold onto it, but everywhere I look there are real, weighty reasons to despair. The pandemic marks a stretch on the timeline that tangles with a teetering democracy, a deteriorating planet , the loss of human rights that once felt unshakable . When the world is falling apart Land Before Time style, it can feel trite, sniffing out the beauty – useless, firing off flares to anyone looking for signs of life. But, while I’m under no delusions that if we just keep trudging forward we’ll find our own oasis of waterfalls and grassy meadows glistening in the sunshine beneath a heavenly chorus, I wonder if trivializing small acts of beauty, connection, and hope actually cuts us off from resources essential to our survival. The group of abandoned dinosaurs were keeping each other alive and making each other laugh well before they made it to their fantasy ending.

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After the monarch butterfly went on the endangered-species list, my friend and fellow writer Hannah Soyer sent me wildflower seeds to plant in my yard. A simple act of big hope – that I will actually plant them, that they will grow, that a monarch butterfly will receive nourishment from whatever blossoms are able to push their way through the dirt. There are so many ways that could fail. But maybe the outcome wasn’t exactly the point. Maybe hope is the dogged insistence – the stubborn defiance – to continue cultivating moments of beauty regardless. There is value in the planting apart from the harvest.

I can’t point out a single collective lesson from the pandemic. It’s hard to see any great “we.” Still, I see the faces in my moms’ group, making pancakes for their kids and popping on between strings of meetings while we try to figure out how to raise these small people in this chaotic world. I think of my friends on Instagram tending to the selves they discovered when no one was watching and the scarf of ribbons stretching the length of more than three football fields. I remember my family of three, holding hands on the way up the ramp to the library. These bits of growth and rings of support might not be loud or right on the surface, but that’s not the same thing as nothing. If we only cared about the bottom-line defeats or sweeping successes of the big picture, we’d never plant flowers at all.

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Read these 12 moving essays about life during coronavirus

Artists, novelists, critics, and essayists are writing the first draft of history.

by Alissa Wilkinson

The world is grappling with an invisible, deadly enemy, trying to understand how to live with the threat posed by a virus . For some writers, the only way forward is to put pen to paper, trying to conceptualize and document what it feels like to continue living as countries are under lockdown and regular life seems to have ground to a halt.

So as the coronavirus pandemic has stretched around the world, it’s sparked a crop of diary entries and essays that describe how life has changed. Novelists, critics, artists, and journalists have put words to the feelings many are experiencing. The result is a first draft of how we’ll someday remember this time, filled with uncertainty and pain and fear as well as small moments of hope and humanity.

• The Vox guide to navigating the coronavirus crisis

At the New York Review of Books, Ali Bhutto writes that in Karachi, Pakistan, the government-imposed curfew due to the virus is “eerily reminiscent of past military clampdowns”:

Beneath the quiet calm lies a sense that society has been unhinged and that the usual rules no longer apply. Small groups of pedestrians look on from the shadows, like an audience watching a spectacle slowly unfolding. People pause on street corners and in the shade of trees, under the watchful gaze of the paramilitary forces and the police.

His essay concludes with the sobering note that “in the minds of many, Covid-19 is just another life-threatening hazard in a city that stumbles from one crisis to another.”

Writing from Chattanooga, novelist Jamie Quatro documents the mixed ways her neighbors have been responding to the threat, and the frustration of conflicting direction, or no direction at all, from local, state, and federal leaders:

Whiplash, trying to keep up with who’s ordering what. We’re already experiencing enough chaos without this back-and-forth. Why didn’t the federal government issue a nationwide shelter-in-place at the get-go, the way other countries did? What happens when one state’s shelter-in-place ends, while others continue? Do states still under quarantine close their borders? We are still one nation, not fifty individual countries. Right?

• A syllabus for the end of the world

Award-winning photojournalist Alessio Mamo, quarantined with his partner Marta in Sicily after she tested positive for the virus, accompanies his photographs in the Guardian of their confinement with a reflection on being confined :

The doctors asked me to take a second test, but again I tested negative. Perhaps I’m immune? The days dragged on in my apartment, in black and white, like my photos. Sometimes we tried to smile, imagining that I was asymptomatic, because I was the virus. Our smiles seemed to bring good news. My mother left hospital, but I won’t be able to see her for weeks. Marta started breathing well again, and so did I. I would have liked to photograph my country in the midst of this emergency, the battles that the doctors wage on the frontline, the hospitals pushed to their limits, Italy on its knees fighting an invisible enemy. That enemy, a day in March, knocked on my door instead.

In the New York Times Magazine, deputy editor Jessica Lustig writes with devastating clarity about her family’s life in Brooklyn while her husband battled the virus, weeks before most people began taking the threat seriously:

At the door of the clinic, we stand looking out at two older women chatting outside the doorway, oblivious. Do I wave them away? Call out that they should get far away, go home, wash their hands, stay inside? Instead we just stand there, awkwardly, until they move on. Only then do we step outside to begin the long three-block walk home. I point out the early magnolia, the forsythia. T says he is cold. The untrimmed hairs on his neck, under his beard, are white. The few people walking past us on the sidewalk don’t know that we are visitors from the future. A vision, a premonition, a walking visitation. This will be them: Either T, in the mask, or — if they’re lucky — me, tending to him.

Essayist Leslie Jamison writes in the New York Review of Books about being shut away alone in her New York City apartment with her 2-year-old daughter since she became sick:

The virus. Its sinewy, intimate name. What does it feel like in my body today? Shivering under blankets. A hot itch behind the eyes. Three sweatshirts in the middle of the day. My daughter trying to pull another blanket over my body with her tiny arms. An ache in the muscles that somehow makes it hard to lie still. This loss of taste has become a kind of sensory quarantine. It’s as if the quarantine keeps inching closer and closer to my insides. First I lost the touch of other bodies; then I lost the air; now I’ve lost the taste of bananas. Nothing about any of these losses is particularly unique. I’ve made a schedule so I won’t go insane with the toddler. Five days ago, I wrote Walk/Adventure! on it, next to a cut-out illustration of a tiger—as if we’d see tigers on our walks. It was good to keep possibility alive.

At Literary Hub, novelist Heidi Pitlor writes about the elastic nature of time during her family’s quarantine in Massachusetts:

During a shutdown, the things that mark our days—commuting to work, sending our kids to school, having a drink with friends—vanish and time takes on a flat, seamless quality. Without some self-imposed structure, it’s easy to feel a little untethered. A friend recently posted on Facebook: “For those who have lost track, today is Blursday the fortyteenth of Maprilay.” ... Giving shape to time is especially important now, when the future is so shapeless. We do not know whether the virus will continue to rage for weeks or months or, lord help us, on and off for years. We do not know when we will feel safe again. And so many of us, minus those who are gifted at compartmentalization or denial, remain largely captive to fear. We may stay this way if we do not create at least the illusion of movement in our lives, our long days spent with ourselves or partners or families.

• What day is it today?

Novelist Lauren Groff writes at the New York Review of Books about trying to escape the prison of her fears while sequestered at home in Gainesville, Florida:

Some people have imaginations sparked only by what they can see; I blame this blinkered empiricism for the parks overwhelmed with people, the bars, until a few nights ago, thickly thronged. My imagination is the opposite. I fear everything invisible to me. From the enclosure of my house, I am afraid of the suffering that isn’t present before me, the people running out of money and food or drowning in the fluid in their lungs, the deaths of health-care workers now growing ill while performing their duties. I fear the federal government, which the right wing has so—intentionally—weakened that not only is it insufficient to help its people, it is actively standing in help’s way. I fear we won’t sufficiently punish the right. I fear leaving the house and spreading the disease. I fear what this time of fear is doing to my children, their imaginations, and their souls.

At ArtForum , Berlin-based critic and writer Kristian Vistrup Madsen reflects on martinis, melancholia, and Finnish artist Jaakko Pallasvuo’s 2018 graphic novel Retreat , in which three young people exile themselves in the woods:

In melancholia, the shape of what is ending, and its temporality, is sprawling and incomprehensible. The ambivalence makes it hard to bear. The world of Retreat is rendered in lush pink and purple watercolors, which dissolve into wild and messy abstractions. In apocalypse, the divisions established in genesis bleed back out. My own Corona-retreat is similarly soft, color-field like, each day a blurred succession of quarantinis, YouTube–yoga, and televized press conferences. As restrictions mount, so does abstraction. For now, I’m still rooting for love to save the world.

At the Paris Review , Matt Levin writes about reading Virginia Woolf’s novel The Waves during quarantine:

A retreat, a quarantine, a sickness—they simultaneously distort and clarify, curtail and expand. It is an ideal state in which to read literature with a reputation for difficulty and inaccessibility, those hermetic books shorn of the handholds of conventional plot or characterization or description. A novel like Virginia Woolf’s The Waves is perfect for the state of interiority induced by quarantine—a story of three men and three women, meeting after the death of a mutual friend, told entirely in the overlapping internal monologues of the six, interspersed only with sections of pure, achingly beautiful descriptions of the natural world, a day’s procession and recession of light and waves. The novel is, in my mind’s eye, a perfectly spherical object. It is translucent and shimmering and infinitely fragile, prone to shatter at the slightest disturbance. It is not a book that can be read in snatches on the subway—it demands total absorption. Though it revels in a stark emotional nakedness, the book remains aloof, remote in its own deep self-absorption.

• Vox is starting a book club. Come read with us!

In an essay for the Financial Times, novelist Arundhati Roy writes with anger about Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s anemic response to the threat, but also offers a glimmer of hope for the future:

Historically, pandemics have forced humans to break with the past and imagine their world anew. This one is no different. It is a portal, a gateway between one world and the next. We can choose to walk through it, dragging the carcasses of our prejudice and hatred, our avarice, our data banks and dead ideas, our dead rivers and smoky skies behind us. Or we can walk through lightly, with little luggage, ready to imagine another world. And ready to fight for it.

From Boston, Nora Caplan-Bricker writes in The Point about the strange contraction of space under quarantine, in which a friend in Beirut is as close as the one around the corner in the same city:

It’s a nice illusion—nice to feel like we’re in it together, even if my real world has shrunk to one person, my husband, who sits with his laptop in the other room. It’s nice in the same way as reading those essays that reframe social distancing as solidarity. “We must begin to see the negative space as clearly as the positive, to know what we don’t do is also brilliant and full of love,” the poet Anne Boyer wrote on March 10th, the day that Massachusetts declared a state of emergency. If you squint, you could almost make sense of this quarantine as an effort to flatten, along with the curve, the distinctions we make between our bonds with others. Right now, I care for my neighbor in the same way I demonstrate love for my mother: in all instances, I stay away. And in moments this month, I have loved strangers with an intensity that is new to me. On March 14th, the Saturday night after the end of life as we knew it, I went out with my dog and found the street silent: no lines for restaurants, no children on bicycles, no couples strolling with little cups of ice cream. It had taken the combined will of thousands of people to deliver such a sudden and complete emptiness. I felt so grateful, and so bereft.

And on his own website, musician and artist David Byrne writes about rediscovering the value of working for collective good , saying that “what is happening now is an opportunity to learn how to change our behavior”:

In emergencies, citizens can suddenly cooperate and collaborate. Change can happen. We’re going to need to work together as the effects of climate change ramp up. In order for capitalism to survive in any form, we will have to be a little more socialist. Here is an opportunity for us to see things differently — to see that we really are all connected — and adjust our behavior accordingly. Are we willing to do this? Is this moment an opportunity to see how truly interdependent we all are? To live in a world that is different and better than the one we live in now? We might be too far down the road to test every asymptomatic person, but a change in our mindsets, in how we view our neighbors, could lay the groundwork for the collective action we’ll need to deal with other global crises. The time to see how connected we all are is now.

The portrait these writers paint of a world under quarantine is multifaceted. Our worlds have contracted to the confines of our homes, and yet in some ways we’re more connected than ever to one another. We feel fear and boredom, anger and gratitude, frustration and strange peace. Uncertainty drives us to find metaphors and images that will let us wrap our minds around what is happening.

Yet there’s no single “what” that is happening. Everyone is contending with the pandemic and its effects from different places and in different ways. Reading others’ experiences — even the most frightening ones — can help alleviate the loneliness and dread, a little, and remind us that what we’re going through is both unique and shared by all.

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Life before COVID-19: how was the World actually performing?

Affiliations.

• 1 School of Information, Systems and Modelling (ISM), University of Technology Sydney, Sydney, Australia.
• 2 Centre on Persuasive Systems for Wise Adaptive Living (PERSWADE), University of Technology Sydney, Sydney, Australia.
• PMID: 33456074
• PMCID: PMC7799424
• DOI: 10.1007/s11135-020-01091-6

The COVID-19 pandemic has suddenly and deeply changed our lives in a way comparable with the most traumatic events in history, such as a World war. With millions of people infected around the World and already thousands of deaths, there is still a great uncertainty on the actual evolution of the crisis, as well as on the possible post-crisis scenarios, which depend on a number of key variables and factors (e.g. a treatment, a vaccine or some kind of immunity). Despite the optimism enforced by the positive results recently achieved to produce a vaccine, uncertainty is probably still somehow the predominant feeling. From a more philosophical perspective, the COVID-19 drama is also a kind of stress-test for our global system and, probably, an opportunity to reconsider some aspects underpinning it, as well as its sustainability. In this article we focus on the pre-crisis situation by combining a number of selected global indicators that are likely to represent measures of different aspects of life. How was the World actually performing? We have defined 6 macro-categories and inferred their relevance from different sources. Results show that economic-oriented priorities correspond to positive performances, while all other distributions point to a negative performance. Additionally, balanced and economy-focused distributions of weights propose an optimistic interpretation of performance regardless of the absolute score.

Keywords: Global indicators; Multi-criteria decision analysis; Sustainability.

© The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature B.V. part of Springer Nature 2021.

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Impact of COVID-19 on people's livelihoods, their health and our food systems

Joint statement by ilo, fao, ifad and who.

The COVID-19 pandemic has led to a dramatic loss of human life worldwide and presents an unprecedented challenge to public health, food systems and the world of work. The economic and social disruption caused by the pandemic is devastating: tens of millions of people are at risk of falling into extreme poverty, while the number of undernourished people, currently estimated at nearly 690 million, could increase by up to 132 million by the end of the year.

Millions of enterprises face an existential threat. Nearly half of the world’s 3.3 billion global workforce are at risk of losing their livelihoods. Informal economy workers are particularly vulnerable because the majority lack social protection and access to quality health care and have lost access to productive assets. Without the means to earn an income during lockdowns, many are unable to feed themselves and their families. For most, no income means no food, or, at best, less food and less nutritious food. 

The pandemic has been affecting the entire food system and has laid bare its fragility. Border closures, trade restrictions and confinement measures have been preventing farmers from accessing markets, including for buying inputs and selling their produce, and agricultural workers from harvesting crops, thus disrupting domestic and international food supply chains and reducing access to healthy, safe and diverse diets. The pandemic has decimated jobs and placed millions of livelihoods at risk. As breadwinners lose jobs, fall ill and die, the food security and nutrition of millions of women and men are under threat, with those in low-income countries, particularly the most marginalized populations, which include small-scale farmers and indigenous peoples, being hardest hit.

Millions of agricultural workers – waged and self-employed – while feeding the world, regularly face high levels of working poverty, malnutrition and poor health, and suffer from a lack of safety and labour protection as well as other types of abuse. With low and irregular incomes and a lack of social support, many of them are spurred to continue working, often in unsafe conditions, thus exposing themselves and their families to additional risks. Further, when experiencing income losses, they may resort to negative coping strategies, such as distress sale of assets, predatory loans or child labour. Migrant agricultural workers are particularly vulnerable, because they face risks in their transport, working and living conditions and struggle to access support measures put in place by governments. Guaranteeing the safety and health of all agri-food workers – from primary producers to those involved in food processing, transport and retail, including street food vendors – as well as better incomes and protection, will be critical to saving lives and protecting public health, people’s livelihoods and food security.

In the COVID-19 crisis food security, public health, and employment and labour issues, in particular workers’ health and safety, converge. Adhering to workplace safety and health practices and ensuring access to decent work and the protection of labour rights in all industries will be crucial in addressing the human dimension of the crisis. Immediate and purposeful action to save lives and livelihoods should include extending social protection towards universal health coverage and income support for those most affected. These include workers in the informal economy and in poorly protected and low-paid jobs, including youth, older workers, and migrants. Particular attention must be paid to the situation of women, who are over-represented in low-paid jobs and care roles. Different forms of support are key, including cash transfers, child allowances and healthy school meals, shelter and food relief initiatives, support for employment retention and recovery, and financial relief for businesses, including micro, small and medium-sized enterprises. In designing and implementing such measures it is essential that governments work closely with employers and workers.

Countries dealing with existing humanitarian crises or emergencies are particularly exposed to the effects of COVID-19. Responding swiftly to the pandemic, while ensuring that humanitarian and recovery assistance reaches those most in need, is critical.

Now is the time for global solidarity and support, especially with the most vulnerable in our societies, particularly in the emerging and developing world. Only together can we overcome the intertwined health and social and economic impacts of the pandemic and prevent its escalation into a protracted humanitarian and food security catastrophe, with the potential loss of already achieved development gains.

We must recognize this opportunity to build back better, as noted in the Policy Brief issued by the United Nations Secretary-General. We are committed to pooling our expertise and experience to support countries in their crisis response measures and efforts to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals. We need to develop long-term sustainable strategies to address the challenges facing the health and agri-food sectors. Priority should be given to addressing underlying food security and malnutrition challenges, tackling rural poverty, in particular through more and better jobs in the rural economy, extending social protection to all, facilitating safe migration pathways and promoting the formalization of the informal economy.

We must rethink the future of our environment and tackle climate change and environmental degradation with ambition and urgency. Only then can we protect the health, livelihoods, food security and nutrition of all people, and ensure that our ‘new normal’ is a better one.

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Kimberly Chriscaden

Communications Officer World Health Organization

Nutrition and Food Safety (NFS) and COVID-19

Life before COVID-19: how was the World actually performing?

• Published: 11 January 2021
• Volume 55 , pages 1871–1888, ( 2021 )

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• Salvatore F. Pileggi   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0001-9722-2205 1 , 2  

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The COVID-19 pandemic has suddenly and deeply changed our lives in a way comparable with the most traumatic events in history, such as a World war. With millions of people infected around the World and already thousands of deaths, there is still a great uncertainty on the actual evolution of the crisis, as well as on the possible post-crisis scenarios, which depend on a number of key variables and factors (e.g. a treatment, a vaccine or some kind of immunity). Despite the optimism enforced by the positive results recently achieved to produce a vaccine, uncertainty is probably still somehow the predominant feeling. From a more philosophical perspective, the COVID-19 drama is also a kind of stress-test for our global system and, probably, an opportunity to reconsider some aspects underpinning it, as well as its sustainability. In this article we focus on the pre-crisis situation by combining a number of selected global indicators that are likely to represent measures of different aspects of life. How was the World actually performing? We have defined 6 macro-categories and inferred their relevance from different sources. Results show that economic-oriented priorities correspond to positive performances, while all other distributions point to a negative performance. Additionally, balanced and economy-focused distributions of weights propose an optimistic interpretation of performance regardless of the absolute score.

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1 Introduction

The unpredictable and overwhelming COVID-19 pandemic has completely and radically changed our lives and lifestyle in a way comparable with the most traumatic events in history, such as a World war. With millions of people infected around the World and already thousands of deaths (Dong et al. 2020 ), there is still a great uncertainty on the actual evolving of the crisis, as well as on the possible post-crisis scenarios, which depend on a number of key variables and factors (e.g. a treatment Felsenstein et al. 2020 , a vaccine Le et al. 2020 or some kind of immunity Weitz et al. 2020 ). Despite the optimism enforced by the positive results recently achieved to produce a vaccine, uncertainty is probably still somehow the predominant feeling (Chater 2020 ).

The whole scientific community is currently committed to face the challenging situation and to provide solutions and mitigation plans as a response to the complex dynamics at different levels. Indeed, the actual impact of COVID-19 on the different aspects of life (e.g. socio-economic Bashir et al. 2020 , environmental Collivignarelli et al. 2020 and psycological Fofana et al. 2020 ) is still not completely clear. Even relatively obvious or largely predictable macro-effects, such as a huge economic recession, present great elements of uncertainty at the moment (Altig et al. 2020 ). Additionally, a large number of studies have been conducted to explore the role of different factors [e.g. temperature Jamil et al. 2020 and air pollution  Fattorini and Regoli ( 2020 )].

From a more philosophical perspective, the COVID-19 drama is also a kind of stress-test for our system and, probably, an opportunity to reconsider some aspects underpinning it, as well as its sustainability (Naidoo and Fisher 2020 ). However, in order to re-design the World and our lives accordingly, we should first of all fully understand them. We definitely recognise the importance of cultural factors, opinions, personal values and beliefs. At the same time, we believe that it would be valuable to understand global performance in a data-driven and relatively systematic way.

In this article we focus on the pre-crisis situation by combining a number of selected global indicators to represent macro-categories that are likely to represent measures of different aspects of life: how was the World actually performing before pandemic?

We believe that answering the previously stated research question by adopting a relatively unbiased and customizable analysis framework can first of all (1) contribute to have a concise understanding of global development evolution and its priorities in the pre-pandemic period; additionally, it should (2) facilitate a better holistic understanding of the post-pandemic scenario; last but not least, (3) a similar approach can be adopted to estimate and analyse more specific aspects (e.g. global or country resilience to pandemic).

Previous work and background This paper is based on the method proposed in Pileggi ( 2020 ) which adopts a Multi-Criteria Decision Analysis (MCDA) philosophy (Ishizaka and Nemery 2013 ; Velasquez and Hester 2013 ). That paper focuses on the method in itself, which is explained in detail and applied to a number of examples using real data. This work is conceptually different and addresses the result, as the method previously defined has been applied to concretely measure global performance from heterogeneous criteria with emphasis on sustainable development (Hopwood et al. 2005 ). The idea of indices in such an area (e.g. Bravo 2014 ; Shaker 2018 ; Barrera-Roldán and Saldıvar-Valdés 2002 ) is a well consolidated concept. Furthermore, many studies explicitely focus on underlying correlations (e.g. Shaker 2018 , 2015 ).

As discussed later on in the paper, the original method has been slightly modified for this concrete application: on one side, the definition of the categories and their relation with numerical indicators has been simplified (see Sect.  3.1 ); on the other side, some extension has been provided in the weighting phase to better model the trade-offs existing among the different aspects considered (see Sect.  4.1 ). Last but not least, the interpretation of computations has been better formalised (see Sect.  5 ).

Structure of the paper This introductory part is followed by a detailed description of the research methodology. Each of the three phases identified in the methodological section is object of one of the core sections which deal, respectively, with the selection of criteria (Sect.  3 ), the weighting of such criteria (Sect.  4 ) and the performance analysis based on the resulting computations (Sect.  5 ). The paper finishes with a typical conclusions and future work section.

2 Methodology and approach

The methodology adopted in this study is summarised in concept in Fig.  1 . The target system is modelled by selecting a number of categorised indicators, which are global indicators in this study. The model also assumes weights and semantics associated with indicators and it’s the input for the computational method (Pileggi 2020 ). Interpretations are based on both qualitative and quantitative metrics. The three main seamless phases are briefly discussed in this section both with key design decisions, possible biases and uncertainties.

Method in concept. The target system is modelled by a number of categorised indicators and by the weights and the semantics associated. Such a model is the input for the computational method. Results are analysed by adopting qualitative and quantitative metrics

Criteria selection: macro-categories and representative indicators The normal approach (adopted also in previous work (Pileggi 2020 ) as well as by many reputable studies and publications, such as Our World in Data ) is to group the different indicators in classes which represent, therefore, an abstracted categorization of the considered indicators. It is very useful, especially considering the great availability of data, dependencies and the need to consider multiple aspects together.

In the context of this work, we have defined a number of categories of interest, each one represented by one single indicator that should be chosen to effectively characterise the target category. In terms of model (Fig.  1 ), given M categories and N indicators, we are assuming \(N=M\) and cardinality 1:1. Such a simplification allows an easier weighting and modelling within the method adopted (Pileggi 2020 ). We are assuming the definition of categories and the selection of representative indicators as an intrinsic bias, which is referred to as selection bias . Additionally, as the different indicators are expressed by different units and scales which don’t necessarily reflect their relevance in the resulting system or model, we assume a second kind of bias called numerical bias . The latter will be further discussed in Sect.  3.1 .

Weighting Weighting the target categories or indicators is a critical step. Indeed, while indicators themselves may be considered objective measures, their weighting should reflect the different relevance/importance of the various criteria in the context of the considered system or model. Weights may be estimated in different ways. For instance, they may reflect the opinions within a given group or community, normally elicited by surveys or interviews. Alternatively, weights may be inferred by capturing input parameters by the users of tools that adopt the method (Pileggi 2020 ). Either ways, to be relevant, the weighting should be based on a significant number of samples. Moreover, in general, survey/interview defines a static approach as it is based on a concrete selection of indicators. Changing indicators implies the need to re-estimate weights. Such a process is very demanding and definitely it is not agile.

In this study we have adopted a more pragmatic and, at the same time, flexible approach to establish weights that are inferred by analysing reports on global priorities, issues or challenges. Although, due to the different intent and extent of the selected reports, it is not possible to define a systematic method to infer weights, this approach assures weighting according to different foci and perspectives. As proposed later on in the paper, the analysis of different reports leads to weight configurations that may vary very much from each other.

Last but not least, unlike in the original method, in this work we assume finite resource for weighting to better model the trade-offs raising in a limited resource world (see Sect.  4 ).

Computation and analysis The final step is the computation of the results based on the input as defined in the two previous phases. The computational method should support the systematic combination of heterogeneous indicators and associated semantics, measure uncertainty and biases, as well as provide a framework for the interpretation of results. Results based on the application of the original method (Pileggi 2020 ) with the modifications previously explained are discussed in Sect.  5 .

3 Categories and indicators

The very first logical step of the study assumes the definition of macro-categories and the consequent selection of representative indicators. Such a step is described in the following subsection, while Sect.  3.2 deals with numerical bias and its minimization.

3.1 Categories

Inspired by Our World in Data , we have defined our own marco-categories (summary in Table  1 ) reflecting different aspects of life as follows:

Environment/sustainability Several indicators might represent this macro-category as either global environmental measures (e.g. temperature anomaly or CO2 emissions) or indicators in sub-categories (e.g. energy) potentially express the performance trend. In the context of this work, we consider temperature anomaly (Morice et al. 2012 ; Ritchie and Roser 2017 ) as a representative indicator which we want, evidently, to decrease.

Health/demographic change Life expectancy (Temperature 2020 ; Riley 2005 ; Zijdeman and Ribeira da Silva 2005 ; Max Roser and Ritchie 2013 ) has been selected to represent this macro-category. Indeed, an increasing life expectancy reflects, normally, an improved healthcare, as well as it implies population increasing. In terms of wished trend, we want life expectancy to increase, although an higher population may have negative implications in terms of global sustainability.

Economy It is represented by the classic GDP per capita (World Development Indicators, Roser 2013b ), as more sophisticated indicators (e.g. Economic Complexity Index Hausmann et al. 2014 ) are normally understood at a country level and might be not very indicative if considered globally. The GDP represents somehow an economical model that assumes never ending growing. The impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on global economy is expected to be much more consistent than in recent crisis (Kotz 2009 ) and to be comparable with the second World war.

Poverty/inequality We consider that the number of people living in extreme poverty (Roser and Ortiz-Ospina 2013 ; Ravallion 2015 ) is the ideal measure to properly integrate economic indicators that express a generic increasing well-being by introducing the concept of inequality. Although we recognise an intrinsic interdependency, we prefer to keep this category separated from the previous one as we want to be able to differentiate ideas and concerns related to the economic growth in itself from the others that explicitly address poverty and inequality.

Human rights/freedom By considering democracy as one of the most relevant achievements of all times, we believe that the number of people living in democracy (Roser 2013a ) may be an effective representative for human rights and, more in general, freedom. Indeed, we consider democracy as a condition necessary (although not always sufficient) to create a socio-political environment in which individual freedom and human rights are likely to be fully respected.

Violence/instability The selection of a single indicator to express violence and instability in general terms is not easy. Looking at recent happenings, we consider that measures related to terrorism (Ritchie et al. 2013 ) may be a very reasonable choice. From one side, it’s not always easy to understand terrorism and classify terrorist attacks according to the same criteria worldwide. However, a clear definition for terrorism and a number of unanimously recognised principles currently exist (Ritchie et al. 2013 ). Terrorism is normally generated by situations of war or local conflict and it definitely causes uncertainty, violence and instability.

All indicators selected are based on objective measures, while others that result from perceptions or opinions (e.g. happiness Frey and Stutzer 2012 ) have not been included.

For the numerical analysis proposed in the paper, we are considering recent years and, more concretely, the time range 2000–2015. Unfortunately, it is not possible to include in the study later years as the indicator measuring people currently living in democracy is available only up to 2015. As per previous explanations, we consider such an indicator as very relevant for the extent and the intent of this research, so we prefer to keep it and reduce the target time range. Additionally, the indicator on people living in extreme poverty is measured at a different granularity of all others, which are available by year. We have indeed adopted approximations considering the available values for the years 2002, 2005, 2008, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013 and 2015.

In terms of wished trends (Table  1 ), we want the temperature anomaly, people living in poverty and deaths caused by terrorism to decrease, while an increasing trend is wanted for life expectancy, people living in democracy and GDP. The actual trends in the considered time range is shown in Fig.  2 on the left. In the same figure, the contribution to global performance by considering the wished trends (Pileggi 2020 ) is shown on the right. According to this view, positive trends in the chart contributes positively to global performance. Likewise, negative trends have a negative impact on the performance.

Looking at the data reported, health/demographics, economy, poverty/inequality and freedom/human rights are positively performing. On the other side, environment/sustainability and violence/instability present strongly negative performance.

Selected indicators expressed as the percentage of variation with respect to the initial state (left). The contribution of the different indicators to performance as the function of the associated wished trend is reported on the right

3.2 Dealing with numerical bias

At a more theoretical level, the definition of a restricted number of meaningful categories in the extent and intent of the current study can be considered a kind of bias in itself. It’s somehow inherent in study design.

At a practical level, it is almost impossible to provide a numerically balanced set of indicators. Indeed, indicators are normally very heterogeneous, adopts their own units of measure and may present very different numerical variations. In general, the variation of a given indicator is not comparable in terms of relevance with the variation of another indicators. Therefore, numerical proportions are not semantically relevant for the purpose of the considered study, meaning that numerical variations are not necessarily proportional with the relevance in the system or model.

We have represented all indicators uniformly as the percentage variation with respect to the initial state. As shown in Fig.  2 , for the considered set of indicators, the variation of deaths by terrorism is numerically much more relevant than any other. Also the temperature anomaly presents a strong pattern in this sense. However, it is not numerically comparable with the previous. As both indicators contribute potentially in a negative way on global performance, the resulting indicator framework is strongly biased (numerically) in this case and may affect the fairness of the computation.

The numerical differences among the considered indicators imply the need to deal with different scales when computing the different aspects together. In order to minimise numerical biases, we adopt the mechanism described in Pileggi ( 2020 ) in addition to weighting. A detailed description of such an adaptive mechanism is out of the scope of the paper. An example of the numerical bias using and not using the mechanism is reported in Fig.  3 .

Visualization of numerical bias by considering a linear combination of the different criteria by adopting the reference computational method (Pileggi 2020 ) (left). Such numerical bias can be reduced by applying adaptive tuning as per reference method (Pileggi 2020 ) (right)

4 Weighting

Once target criteria are defined, the weighting stage may result extremely subjective. The most natural way to weight criteria is probably by survey, as it is relatively simple to map weights into an opinion-based survey. In such a way, opinions from a generic public as well as opinions within defined communities may be captured and converted in a corresponding set of weights.

However, capturing people’s opinions in a meaningful way requires a large number of samples. Therefore, we have preferred to adopt a completely different and more pragmatic approach that aims to infer weights from the analysis of popular reports (e.g. from United Nations Footnote 1 and Global Economic Forum Footnote 2 ). On one side, the simplified approach adopted in the selection phase allows to weight categories rather than single indicators. It makes the mapping much easier. On the other side, the interpretation of certain kind of report may be subjective.

In the following subsections, we first describe an extension to the reference method to better model existing trade-offs and, then, we discuss the inference of weight sets from different sources of information.

4.1 Finite-resource assumption to model trade-offs

The original method (Pileggi 2020 ) doesn’t assume specific constraints for weights: the different indicators are weighted independently within a minimum value \(W_{min}\) and a maximum value \(W_{max}\) . Thus, any indicator i is associated with the corresponding weight \(W_{min} \leqslant w_i \leqslant W_{max}\) , for instance in a range [0,10].

That independent weighting intrinsically assumes an infinite resource model. For instance, it is possible to associate the maximum weight with all indicators ( \(w_i=W_{max},\forall i\) ). It doesn’t force decisions which should model the trade-offs existing among the different aspects of life. In order to model such trade-offs in a more effective way, we introduce a constraint for the overall weighting value, \(W_{tot}=\sum _{i=1}^{n}{w_i} \leq nk\) , where n is the number of considered criteria and k is a value between \(W_{min}\) and \(W_{max}\) . In the context of this work we are using six different criteria ( \(n=6\) ) and weighting in the range [1,10] ( \(1 \leq w_i \leq 10, \forall {i}\) ) rather than [0,10] as we want all criteria to contribute to overall performance. We consider \(k=5\) , which implies \(W_{tot}=30\) .

4.2 Weighting based on report analysis

In this sub-section we propose different weightings based on the analysis of different sources of information. As previously explained, probably such an inference cannot be completely objective. In order to minimise the impact of interpretations and biases in the analysis, for each case considered, the criteria and conclusions are explained and briefly discussed. Additionally, we have restricted the analysis to sources of information that allow a relative easy mapping. We have excluded those sources that potentially provide very good insight but are objectively hard to be converted in a clear weight set to the target criteria.

A summary of the weights produced by analysing the different reports is proposed in Fig.  4 . Each case is separately analysed and explained in the remaining part of this sub-section.

Weighting based on the analysis of different sources. Each weights set is compared with an homogeneous distribution of the resources—i.e. Neutral Weighting

Weighting based on the analysis of UN Global Issues The UN Global Issues report proposes 22 different global issues. Each issue in the report can be associated to no-one, one or more than one of the categories identified in this study.

According to our analysis, the category Environment/Sustainability is associated with 5 issues from the report (Atomic Energy, Climate Change, Food, Water), Health/Demography with 5 issues (Africa, Ageing, AIDS, Health, Population), Economy with no issue directly, Poverty/Inequality with 6 issues (Africa, Children, Decolonization, Ending Poverty, Food, Water), Human Rights/Freedom with 6 issues (Africa, Democracy, Gender Equality, Human Rights, International Law and Justice, Refugees) and Violence/Instability with 2 issues (Africa, Peace&Security). Resulting weights are reported in Table  2 . As previously discussed, the minimum weight assumed is 1.

Weighting based on the analysis of WEF 10 biggest global challenges (2016) The WEF 10 biggest global challenges [8] is a report with a much more economic focus. The criteria to map the 10 challenges in the report into weights are the same as in the previous case.

From our analysis, Environment/Sustainability is directly related to 2 challenges (Food Security, Climate Change), Health/Demographics to 1 challenge (Healthcare), Economy to 5 challenges (Inclusive Growth, Unemployment, Financial Crisis, Global Trade, Investment Strategy), Poverty/Inequality to 2 challenges (Food Security, Inclusive Growth), Human Rights/Freedom to 1 challenge (Gender Equality) and Violence/Instability to no challenge. The resulting weighing is reported in Table  3 .

Weighting based on the analysis of 10 most important global issues from The Borgen Project The Borgen Project, a nonprofit organization that is addressing poverty and hunger, has provided a list of 10 most important global issues [5].

According to our analysis of such a source, Environment/Sustainability is directly associated with 3 of the 10 issues (Climate Change, Pollution), Health/Demographics with 4 (Pollution, Security and Wellbeing, Malnourishment and Hunger, Substance Abuse), Economy with 1 (Unemployment), Poverty/Inequality with 3 (Lack of Education, Malnourishment and Hunger, Security and Wellbeing), Human Rights/Freedom with 1 (Government Corruption) and Violence/Instability with 3 (Violence, Security and Wellbeing, Terrorism). The resulting weights are reported in Table  4 .

Weighting based on the analysis of Global Shapers Survey 2017 Global Shapers Survey 2017 by WEF reflects opinion of millennials. Business Insider Australia has recently provided a list of the 10 most critical problems in the World according to millennials based on the Global Shapers Survey. In order to assure uniformity and consistency with previous cases, we have considered the list of problems provided but not the relevance associated with each of them.

According to our analysis, Environment/Sustainability matches with 2 problems (Food and water security, Climate change/Destruction of nature), Health/Demographics with 1 (Safety/Security/Wellbeing), Economy with 1 (Lack of economic opportunity and unemployment), Poverty/Inequality with 4 (Lack of education, Food and water security, Poverty, Inequality), Human Rights/Freedom with 1 (Government accountability and transparency/Corruption) and Violence/Instability with 3 (Safety/Security/Wellbeing, Religious conflicts, Large scale conflict/Wars ). Weights are reported in Table  5 .

5 Performance analysis

Performance analysis is based on two main metrics as follows:

Score This is the primary metric for analysis and it is based uniquely on the absolute performance according to computations (Pileggi 2020 ): positive scores are associated with positive performance, as well as negative scores correspond to negative performance.

Interpretation It is a relative metric defined by comparing the score of a given computation with the corresponding neutral computation, which assumes fair weighting (Pileggi 2020 ). In qualitative terms, scores higher than neutral computation correspond to an optimistic interpretation, while lower scores are associated with a pessimistic interpretation.

The two metrics as defined are completely independent as all qualitative combinations of the two metrics (positive/optimistic, positive/pessimistic, negative/optimistic and negative/pessimistic) are possible.

Looking at the analysis framework more holistically, two additional analysis factors may be considered:

Uncertainty In the context of this study, rather than a proper uncertainty, such a metric defines higher and lower bounds based on the potential weighting variance. Such an estimation provides a more consistent support for analysis in context.

Numerical bias Even though it is limited by the method adopted, numerical bias directly affects the absolute result. It is expressed by the neutral computation and can play a relevant role not only in the analysis phase but also when selecting criteria, as it can drive the selection of balanced set of indicators.

Computations for the different weight sets are presented in Fig.  5 , while a qualitative summary of results is presented in Table  6 .

Looking at Fig.  5 , the score associated with the different weight sets is represented by the blue line. Such a score is compared with the corresponding neutral computations in the charts on the left, while it is represented both with extreme computations in the charts on the right.

Weights from the analysis of UN Global Issues propose a relatively balanced distribution with a priority on Poverty/Inequality, Human Rights/Freedom, Health/Demographics and Environment/Sustainability. Additionally, there is a relative low priority for Violence/Instability and no economical focus. The resulting computation shows contrasting results, including a negative performance but also an optimistic interpretation. The weight set resulting from the analysis of the 10 biggest global challenges by WEF presents a much more economic oriented focus with a significant attention also for Environment/Sustainability and Poverty/Inequality. Human Rights/Freedom is still considered a kind of priority, while there is no explicit attention for Violence/Instability. Such a distribution of weights result in a very positive understanding of global performance. By focusing explicitly on addressing poverty, the weights from The Borgen Project proposes an interesting case study. The priority is clearly on 3 criteria, Health/Demographics, Poverty/Inequality and Violence/Instability. The computations associated show a clear negative trend in terms of either performance and interpretation (pessimistic). The analysis based on opinions of Millennials proposes a much more radical distribution with a clear priority on Poverty/Inequality and a significant attention on Environment/Sustainability and Violence/Instability. Final results are very similar to the ones related to the previous case (negative/pessimistic).

Average weights are reported in the last chart in Fig.  4 . As shown, the different case studies considered seem to balance each other. The average case proposes however a priority on Poverty/Inequality. Computations for the average case point out negative performance and optimistic interpretation (Fig. 6 ).

Computations based on the different weight sets. On the left, computed results assuming a given weights set are compared with the corresponding assuming homogeneous weighting ( Neutral Weighting ). On the right, results are considered looking at the extreme possible computations

Computation based on average weights. On the left, the computed result adopting average weighs is compared with the corresponding assuming homogeneous weighting ( Neutral Weighting ). On the right, that same result is considered looking at the extreme possible computations

As expected, the priorities defined by the different weight sets play a key role in the final assessment of performance from a quantitative perspective. However, as shown, it’s the contextual interpretation of such metrics that is considered the final assessment. We believe that the research framework proposed can be simple and effective to assess holistically the post-pandemic scenario, as well as to properly assess and reflect mindset and priorities changes behind the numerical estimations or measures.

Looking at possible interpretations of the results, we would like to remark that the method adopted works in terms of dynamic trend rather than of static snapshot, according to a philosophy of continuous evolution of the World. Such an approach is reflected in the computation of metrics. Therefore, a positive score in a given time-frame should be understood like the World is becoming a better place rather than the World is a good place (Pileggi 2020 ).

6 Conclusions and future work

By adopting a MCDA-based method, we considered 6 different macro-categories to measure global performance. The method provides a relatively fair analysis framework which allows the systematic combination of heterogeneous criteria. The weights associated with the different criteria play a key role in terms of final result. We have adopted a model that assumes finite resource in order to empathize the trade-offs existing among the different aspects considered.

In order to assess global performance and, more in general, global development trends, we have considered four different case studies with a very different focus. Results show that economic-oriented priorities correspond to positive performances, while all other distributions point to a negative performance. Additionally, balanced and economy-focused distributions of weights propose an optimistic interpretation of performance regardless of the absolute score.

Future work is expected to be developed in different directions. In line with the current focus, we will aim more fine grained studies at a country level. We will explore further secondary data sources to infer priorities accordingly (e.g. World Values Survey — http://www.worldvaluessurvey.org/ ). We will also propose and analyse in context additional case studies with a more community-oriented focus to be established by survey (e.g. Danowski and Park 2020 ).

The results obtained contribute to provide a concise understanding in context of the global development evolution and its underpinning priorities in the pre-pandemic period. We believe that such a dynamic snapshot can be useful to facilitate a better holistic understanding of the post-pandemic scenario that will be object of our future research. Indeed, we expect a significant mindset change triggered by the pandemic that will probably have an impact in setting priorities for a sustainable development. Last but not least, we will adopt a similar approach to estimate and analyse more specific aspects (e.g. global or country resilience to pandemic).

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Our most sincere gratitude to the anonymous reviewers who provided extensive and constructive feedback. The comments received were very valuable to produce a significantly improved version of the paper.

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Pileggi, S.F. Life before COVID-19: how was the World actually performing?. Qual Quant 55 , 1871–1888 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11135-020-01091-6

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23 June 2020 – The COVID-19 pandemic has  demonstrated the interconnected nature of our world – and that no one is safe until everyone is safe.  Only by acting in solidarity can communities save lives and overcome the devastating socio-economic impacts of the virus.  In partnership with the United Nations, people around the world are showing acts of humanity, inspiring hope for a better future. 

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Creating hope

Venezuelan refugee Juan Batista Ramos, 69, plays guitar in front of a mural he painted at the Tancredo Neves temporary shelter in Boa Vista, Brazil to help lift COVID-19 quarantine blues.  “Now, everywhere you look you will see a landscape to remind us that there is beauty in the world,” he says.  Ramos is among the many artists around the world using the power of culture to inspire hope and solidarity during the pandemic.  Photo: UNHCR/Allana Ferreira

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Wendy Schellemans, an education assistant at the Royal Woluwe Institute in Brussels, models a transparent face mask designed to help the hard of hearing.  The United Nations and partners are working to ensure that responses to COVID-19 leave no one behind.  Photo courtesy of Royal Woluwe Institute

Humanity at its best

Maryna, a community worker at the Arts Centre for Children and Youth in Chasiv Yar village, Ukraine, makes face masks on a sewing machine donated by the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) and civil society partner, Proliska.  She is among the many people around the world who are voluntarily addressing the shortage of masks on the market. Photo: UNHCR/Artem Hetman

Keep future leaders learning

A mother helps her daughter Ange, 8, take classes on television at home in Man, Côte d'Ivoire.  Since the COVID-19 pandemic began, caregivers and educators have responded in stride and have been instrumental in finding ways to keep children learning.  In Côte d'Ivoire, the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) partnered with the Ministry of Education on a ‘school at home’ initiative, which includes taping lessons to be aired on national TV and radio.  Ange says: “I like to study at home.  My mum is a teacher and helps me a lot.  Of course, I miss my friends, but I can sleep a bit longer in the morning.  Later I want to become a lawyer or judge."  Photo: UNICEF/UNI320749

Global solidarity

People in Nigeria’s Lagos State simulate sneezing into their elbows during a coronavirus prevention campaign.  Many African countries do not have strong health care systems.  “Global solidarity with Africa is an imperative – now and for recovering better,” said United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres.  “Ending the pandemic in Africa is essential for ending it across the world.” Photo: UNICEF Nigeria/2020/Ojo

A new way of working

Henri Abued Manzano, a tour guide at the United Nations Information Service (UNIS) in Vienna, speaks from his apartment.  COVID-19 upended the way people work, but they can be creative while in quarantine.  “We quickly decided that if visitors can’t come to us, we will have to come to them,” says Johanna Kleinert, Chief of the UNIS Visitors Service in Vienna.  Photo courtesy of Kevin Kühn

Life goes on

Hundreds of millions of babies are expected to be born during the COVID-19 pandemic.  Fionn, son of Chloe O'Doherty and her husband Patrick, is among them.  The couple says: “It's all over.  We did it.  Brought life into the world at a time when everything is so uncertain.  The relief and love are palpable.  Nothing else matters.”  Photo: UNICEF/UNI321984/Bopape

Putting meals on the table

Sudanese refugee Halima, in Tripoli, Libya, says food assistance is making her life better.  COVID-19 is exacerbating the existing hunger crisis.  Globally, 6 million more people could be pushed into extreme poverty unless the international community acts now.  United Nations aid agencies are appealing for more funding to reach vulnerable populations.  Photo: UNHCR

Supporting the frontlines

The United Nations Air Service, run by the World Food Programme (WFP), distributes protective gear donated by the Jack Ma Foundation and Alibaba Group, in Somalia. The United Nations is using its supply chain capacity to rapidly move badly needed personal protective equipment, such as medical masks, gloves, gowns and face-shields to the frontline of the battle against COVID-19. Photo: WFP/Jama Hassan  

S7-Episode 2: Bringing Health to the World

“You see, we're not doing this work to make ourselves feel better. That sort of conventional notion of what a do-gooder is. We're doing this work because we are totally convinced that it's not necessary in today's wealthy world for so many people to be experiencing discomfort, for so many people to be experiencing hardship, for so many people to have their lives and their livelihoods imperiled.”

Dr. David Nabarro has dedicated his life to global health. After a long career that’s taken him from the horrors of war torn Iraq, to the devastating aftermath of the Indian Ocean tsunami, he is still spurred to action by the tremendous inequalities in global access to medical care.

“The thing that keeps me awake most at night is the rampant inequities in our world…We see an awful lot of needless suffering.”

:: David Nabarro interviewed by Melissa Fleming

Brazilian ballet pirouettes during pandemic

Ballet Manguinhos, named for its favela in Rio de Janeiro, returns to the stage after a long absence during the COVID-19 pandemic. It counts 250 children and teenagers from the favela as its performers. The ballet group provides social support in a community where poverty, hunger and teen pregnancy are constant issues.

Radio journalist gives the facts on COVID-19 in Uzbekistan

The pandemic has put many people to the test, and journalists are no exception. Coronavirus has waged war not only against people's lives and well-being but has also spawned countless hoaxes and scientific falsehoods.

The world before this coronavirus and after cannot be the same

30 March 2020

by Professor Ian Goldin Professor of Globalisation and Development Professor Ian Goldin was the founding Director of the Oxford Martin School. He is currently Professor of Globalisation and Development, a Professorial Fellow at the University’s Balliol College and responsible for the Oxford Martin School Programmes on the Future of Work, Technological and Economic Change, and Future of Development.

Co-authored by Robert Muggah, Associate Lecturer, Pontifical Catholic University of Rio de Janeiro

With COVID-19 infections now evident in 176 countries, the pandemic is the most significant threat to humanity since the second world war. Then, as now, confidence in international cooperation and institutions plumbed new lows.

While the onset of the second world war took many people by surprise, the outbreak of the coronavirus in December 2019 was a crisis foretold. Infectious disease specialists have been raising the alarm about the accelerated pace of outbreaks for decades. Dengue, Ebola, SARS, H1N1, and Zika are just the tip of the iceberg. Since 1980, more than 12,000 documented outbreaks have infected and killed tens of millions of people around the world, many of them the poorest of the poor. In 2018, the World Health Organisation (WHO) detected outbreaks of six of its eight “priority diseases” for the very first time.

No one can say we weren’t warned .

Even as we attend to the countless emergencies generated by COVID-19, we need to think deeply about why the international community was so unprepared for an outbreak that was so inevitable. This is hardly the first time we’ve faced global catastrophes.

The second world war reflected the catastrophic failure of leaders to learn the lessons of the 1914-1918 war. The creation of the United Nations and Bretton Woods institutions in the late 1940s and early 1950s provided some grounds for optimism, but these were overshadowed by the Cold War. Moreover, the Reagan and Thatcher revolutions of the 1980s rolled back the capacity of governments to address inequality through taxation and redistribution and governments’ ability to deliver health and essential services.

The capacity of international institutions to regulate globalisation was undermined precisely at a time when they were most needed. The 1980s, 1990s and 2000s were a period of rapidly rising cross-border movements of trade, finance and people. The accelerated flow of goods, services and skills is one of the principal reasons for the most rapid reduction of global poverty in history. Since the late 1990s, more than 2 billion people have climbed out of extreme poverty. Improved access to employment, nutrition, sanitation and public health, including vaccine availability, added over a decade in average life expectancy to the world’s population.

But international institutions failed to manage the downside risks generated by globalisation.

Far from empowering the United Nations, the world is governed by divided nations , who prefer to go it alone, starving the institutions designed to safeguard our future of the necessary resources and authority. The WHO shareholders, not its personnel, have failed dismally to ensure it can exercise its vital mandate to protect global health.

Butterfly defect

As the world becomes more connected, it also necessarily becomes more interdependent. This is the dark underbelly, the butterfly defect of globalisation, that if left unmanaged inevitably means that we will suffer escalating, increasingly dangerous systemic risks.

One of the most graphic demonstrations was the 2008 financial crisis. The economic meltdown reflected a dangerous negligence by public authorities and experts in managing the growing complexities of the global financial system. Not surprisingly, the carelessness of the world’s political and economic elite cost them dearly at the ballot box. Campaigning on an explicitly anti-globalisation and anti-expert ticket, populists stormed to power.

Emboldened by public outrage, they have followed an ancient tradition, blaming foreigners and turning their backs on the outside world. The US president, in particular , spurned scientific thinking, spawned fake news, and shunned traditional allies and international institutions.

With evidence of infections rising fast, most national politicians now recognise the traumatic human and economic costs of COVID-19. The Centers for Disease Control’s worst-case scenario is that about 160 million to 210 million Americans will be infected by December 2020. As many as 21 million will need hospitalisation and between 200,000 and 1.7 million people could die within a year. Harvard University researchers believe that 20% to 60% of the global population could be infected , and conservatively estimate that 14 million to 42 million people might lose their lives.

The extent to which direct and excess mortality is prevented depends on how quickly societies can reduce new infections, isolate the sick and mobilise health services, and on how long relapses can be prevented and contained. Without a vaccine, COVID-19 will be a hugely disruptive force for years.

Where the damage will be worst

The pandemic will be especially damaging to poorer and more vulnerable communities within many countries, highlighting the risks associated with rising inequality .

In the US, over 60% of the adult population suffers from a chronic disease. Around one in eight Americans live below the poverty line – more than three-quarters of them live from paycheque to paycheque and over 44 million people in the US have no health coverage at all.

The challenges are even more dramatic in Latin America, Africa and South Asia, where health systems are considerably weaker and governments less able to respond. These latent risks are compounded by the failure of leaders such as Jair Bolsonaro in Brazil or Narendra Modi in India to take the issue seriously enough.

The economic fallout from COVID-19 will be dramatic everywhere. The severity of the impacts depends on how long the pandemic lasts, and the national and international response of governments. But even in the best case it will far exceed that of the 2008 economic crisis in its scale and global impact, leading to losses which could exceed $9 trillion , or well over 10% of global GDP.

In poor communities where many individuals share a single room and depend on going to work to put food on the table, the call for social isolation will be very difficult if not impossible to adhere to. Around the world, as individuals lose their incomes, we should expect rapidly rising homelessness and hunger.

In the US a record 3.3 million people have already filed for unemployment benefit, and across Europe unemployment similarly is reaching record levels. But whereas in the richer countries some safety net exists, even though it is too often in tatters, poor countries simply do not have the capacity to ensure that no-one dies of hunger. With supply chains broken as factories close and workers are quarantined, and consumers prevented from travelling, shopping, other than for food, or engaging in social activities, there is no scope for a fiscal stimulus. Meanwhile monetary policy has been stymied as interest rates are already close to zero. Governments therefore should focus on providing all in need with a basic income, to ensure that no-one starves as a result of the crisis. While the concept of basic income guarantees seemed utopian only a month ago, it now needs to be at the centre of every government’s agenda.

A global Marshall plan

The sheer scale and ferocity of the pandemic demands bold proposals. Some European governments have announced packages of measures to keep their economies from grinding to a halt. In the UK, the government has agreed to cover 80% of wages and self-employed income, up to £2,500 ($2,915) per month, and is providing a lifeline to firms. In the US, a previously unthinkable aid package of $2 trillion has been agreed, though this is likely just the beginning. A gathering of G20 leaders also resulted in a pledge of $5 trillion, though details are slim. The COVID-19 pandemic provides a turning point in national and global affairs. It demonstrates our interdependence and that when risks arise we turn to governments, not the private sector, to save us. The unprecedented economic and medical response in the rich countries is simply not available to many developing countries. As a result the tragic implication is the consequences will be far more severe and long lasting in poorer countries. Progress in development and democracy in many African, Latin American and Asian societies will be reversed. Like climate and other risks, this global pandemic will dramatically worsen inequality within and between countries. A global Marshall plan, with massive injections of funding, is urgently needed to sustain governments and societies. The COVID-19 pandemic is not the death knell of globalisation, as some commentators have suggested. While travel and trade are frozen during the pandemic, there will be a contraction or deglobalisation. In the longer term the continued growth in incomes in Asia, which is home to two-thirds of the world’s population, is likely to mean that travel, trade and financial flows will resume their upward trajectory. But in terms of physical flows, 2019 will likely go down in history as the time of peak supply chain fragmentation. The pandemic will accelerate the reshoring of production, reinforcing a trend of bringing production closer to markets that was already under way. The growth of robotics, artificial intelligence and 3D printing, together with customers expecting quick delivery of increasingly customised products, politicians eager to bring production home, and businesses seeking to minimise the price of machines, removes the comparative advantages of low-income countries.

It is not only manufacturing which is being automated, but also services such as call centres and administrative processes that now can be more cheaply done by computers in the basement of a headquarters than by people at distant locations. This poses profound questions about the future of work everywhere. It is a particular challenge for low income countries with a young population of work seekers. Africa alone expects 100 million workers to enter the labour market over the next 10 years. Their prospects were unclear before the pandemic struck. Now they are even more precarious.

Implications for political stability

At a time when faith in democracy is at its lowest point in decades , deteriorating economic conditions will have far-reaching implications for political and social stability. There is already a tremendous trust gap between leaders and citizens. Some political leaders are sending mixed signals and citizens are receiving conflicting messages. This reinforces their lack of trust in public authorities and “the experts”.

This lack of trust can make responding to the crisis much more difficult at the national level, and also has undermined the global response to the pandemic.

While making urgent calls for multilateral cooperation , the United Nations is still missing in action, having been sidelined by the major powers in recent years. Promising to inject billions – even trillions – into the response , the World Bank and International Monetary Fund will need to ramp up their activities to have a meaningful impact.

Owing to a shortage of international leadership from the US, cities, businesses and philanthropies are stepping up. China has gone from villain to hero in responding to the pandemic, partly by extending its soft power – in the form of doctors and equipment – to affected countries. Singaporean, South Korean, Chinese, Taiwanese, Italian, French and Spanish researchers are actively publishing and sharing their experience, including by fast-tracking research on what works.

So far, some of the most inspiring action is nongovernmental. For example, city networks such as the US Conference of Mayors and National League of Cities are rapidly sharing good practice on how to keep infectious diseases from spreading, which should improve local responses. The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation contributed $100 million to expanding local health capacities in Africa and South Asia. Groups like Wellcome Trust , Skoll , the Open Society Foundations , the UN Foundation , and Google.org are also scaling up assistance.

Needless to say, the complexities of globalisation will not be resolved by appeals to nationalism and closed borders. The spread of COVID-19 must be met with a similarly coordinated international effort to find vaccines, mobilise medical supplies and, when the volcanic dust settles, to ensure that we never again face what could be an even deadlier disease.

Now is not the time for recriminations: it is the time for action. National and city governments , businesses, and ordinary citizens around the world must do everything they can to flatten the epidemic curve immediately, following the examples set by Singapore, South Korea, Hong Kong, Hangzhou and Taiwan.

Coalition of the willing must lead global response

Now more than ever, we need a comprehensive global response. The Group of Seven and G20 leading economies appear rudderless under their current leadership. While promising to ensure attention to the poorest countries and to refugees, their recent virtual meeting offered too little too late. But this cannot be allowed to stop others acting to mitigate the impact of COVID-19. In partnership with G20 nations, a creative coalition of willing countries should take urgent steps to restore confidence not just in the markets but in global institutions.

The European Union, China and other nations will have to step up and lead a global effort, dragging the US into a global response which includes accelerating vaccine trials and ensuring free distribution once a vaccine and antivirals are found. Governments around the world will also need to take dramatic action toward massive investments in health, sanitation and basic income.

Eventually, we will get over this crisis. But too many people will have died, the economy will be severely scarred, and the threat of pandemics will remain. The priority then must be not only recovery, but also establishing a robust multilateral mechanism for ensuring that a similar or even worse pandemic never again arises.

There is no wall high enough that will keep out the next pandemic, or indeed any of the other great threats to our future. But what these high walls will keep out is the technologies, people, finance and most of all the collective ideas and will to cooperate that we need to address pandemics, climate change, antibiotic resistance, terror and other global threats.

The world Before Coronavirus and After Coronavirus cannot be the same. We must avoid the mistakes made throughout the 20th and early 21st centuries by undertaking fundamental reforms to ensure that we never again face the threat of pandemics.

If we can work together within our countries to prioritise the needs of all our citizens, and internationally to overcome the divides that have allowed the threats of pandemics to fester, out of the terrible fire of this pandemic a new world order could be forged. By learning to cooperate we would not only have learnt to stop the next pandemic, but also to address climate change and other critical threats.

Now is the time to start building the necessary bridges at home and abroad.

This opinion piece reflects the views of the author, and does not necessarily reflect the position of the Oxford Martin School or the University of Oxford. Any errors or omissions are those of the author.

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COVID-19 making worrying comeback WHO warns, amid summertime surge

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COVID-19 infections are surging worldwide - including at the Olympics - and are unlikely to decline anytime soon, the World Health Organization (WHO) warned on Tuesday.

The UN health agency is also concerned that more severe variants of the coronavirus may soon be on the horizon.

“COVID-19 is still very much with us,” and circulating in all countries, Dr. Maria Van Kerkhove of WHO told journalists in Geneva.

Testing positive

“Data from our sentinel-based surveillance system across 84 countries reports that the percent of positive tests for SARS-CoV-2 has been rising over several weeks ,” she said. “ Overall, test positivity is above 10 per cent , but this fluctuates per region. In Europe, percent positivity is above 20 per cent ,” she added.

New waves of infection have been registered in the Americas, Europe and the western Pacific.

Wastewater surveillance suggests the circulation of SARS-CoV-2 is from two to 20 times higher than current figures suggest.

Such high infection circulation rates in the northern hemisphere’s summer months are atypical for respiratory viruses , which tend to spread mostly in cold temperatures.  

“In recent months, regardless of the season, many countries have experienced surges of COVID-19, including at the Olympics",  Dr. Van Kerkhove said. WHO reported that at least 40 athletes had tested positive for COVID-19 or other respiratory illnesses. 

As the virus continues to evolve and spread, there is a growing risk of a more severe strain of the virus that could potentially evade detection systems and be unresponsive to medical intervention.

Boost vaccine awareness

While hospital admissions - including for intensive care - are still much lower than they were during the peak of the pandemic, WHO is urging governments to strengthen vaccination campaigns, making sure that the highest risk groups get shots at least once every 12 months.

“As individuals it is important to take measures to reduce risk of infection and severe disease, including ensuring that you have had a COVID-19 vaccination dose in the last 12 months, especially, if you are in an at-risk group ,” stressed Dr. Van Kerkhove.

Vaccines availability has declined substantially over the last 12 to 18 months, WHO admits, because the number of producers of COVID-19 vaccines has recently decreased.

“It is very difficult for them to maintain the pace,” Dr. Van Kerkhove explained. “And certainly, they don't need to maintain the pace that they had in 2021 and 2022. But let's be very clear, there is a market for COVID-19 vaccines that are [already] out there.”

Nosing ahead

Nasal vaccines are still under development but could potentially address transmission, thereby reducing the risk of further variants, infection and severe disease.

“I am concerned”, the top WHO COVID specialist said.

“With such low coverage and with such large circulation, if we were to have a variant that would be more severe, then the susceptibility of the at-risk populations to develop severe disease is huge ,” Dr. Van Kerkhove warned.

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Who Are the Far-Right Groups Behind the U.K. Riots?

After a deadly stabbing at a children’s event in northwestern England, an array of online influencers, anti-Muslim extremists and fascist groups have stoked unrest, experts say.

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By Esther Bintliff and Eve Sampson

Esther Bintliff reported from London, and Eve Sampson from New York.

Violent unrest has erupted in several towns and cities in Britain in recent days, and further disorder broke out on Saturday as far-right agitators gathered in demonstrations around the country.

The violence has been driven by online disinformation and extremist right-wing groups intent on creating disorder after a deadly knife attack on a children’s event in northwestern England, experts said.

A range of far-right factions and individuals, including neo-Nazis, violent soccer fans and anti-Muslim campaigners, have promoted and taken part in the unrest, which has also been stoked by online influencers .

Prime Minister Keir Starmer has vowed to deploy additional police officers to crack down on the disorder. “This is not a protest that has got out of hand,” he said on Thursday. “It is a group of individuals who are absolutely bent on violence.”

Here is what we know about the unrest and some of those involved.

Where have riots taken place?

The first riot took place on Tuesday evening in Southport, a town in northwestern England, after a deadly stabbing attack the previous day at a children’s dance and yoga class. Three girls died of their injuries, and eight other children and two adults were wounded.

The suspect, Axel Rudakubana , was born in Britain, but in the hours after the attack, disinformation about his identity — including the false claim that he was an undocumented migrant — spread rapidly online . Far-right activists used messaging apps including Telegram and X to urge people to take to the streets.

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