A deep global recession has already started, because of the economic downturn caused by COVID-19. So says Unilever which has had its food product sales decline dramatically because on the unavailability of ingredients and raw materials.

Hunger will kill us rather than COVID say Oxfam, which identifies these extreme hunger hotspots. Afghanistan, Congo, Venezuela, Ethiopia, Sudan, Syria and Haiti.

The UN World Food Programme have had to cut food deliveries in northern Yemen by half. They estimate that the number of people facing severe hunger will increase by about 122 million this year because of the pandemic.

Oxfam say only 9% of funding for tackling food security has been met by the UN and that the debt owed by poorer countries countries should be cancelled, with greater assistance urgently required.

As I warned from January onwards; the terrible danger of believing media exaggeration. I've watched it explode for decades.

It is deeply troubling and upsetting isn't it Admiral...

Not sure yet where you sit on this issue in terms of media, panic, lockdown etc. But I would not use the language of "due to Covid 19 there is global downturn...".

The economic and human misery resulted from lockdowns. Nothing else. They did not have to happen. A choice was made.

People may disagree and think the lockdowns were required. Fair enough.

But they should have the courage to acknowledge - through accurate language - the outcomes of their convictions.

It is cowardly to do anything else.

(not referring to you Admiral, as I don't know your views; I am making a general point)

My first sentence was verbatim from a recent Unilever publication. Of the countries mentioned, poverty is the key issue.

Take Yemen for example. A country 2.5 the size of the UK, with half the population.

Individual incomes are just over $1 a day, malnutrition is rife and water is extremely scarce.

As with the other countries, COVID-19 was just the straw that broke the camel's back.

But the virus has made international intervention even more essential.

If a massive death toll is to be stopped. Something all agencies and multinational conglomerates agree on.

Apportioning blame is well and good, but can come later when the tens of millions have been saved.

It's a pretty grim outlook and the poorest are clearly going to suffer most. And it seems unlikely they'll have much support from the USA with Trump in charge, which looks likely, as I doubt that Biden is going to retain his lead until election day, he doesn't inspire much confidence, seems less vigorous than Trump, even if Trump isn't much younger and his vigour seems largely expressed in spouting nonsense and tweeting like fury.

I think you might already know Admiral's views on Covid, wyot, but I'll keep my hunch to myself.

Jo wrote:


I think you might already know Admiral's views on Covid, wyot, but I'll keep my hunch to myself.

I was actually already keeping my hunch to myself Jo...

Jo wrote:
it seems unlikely they'll have much support from the USA


With the worst COVID-19 profile in the world (nearly 200k dead and over 6m infected), it might be a lot to expect the USA to reprise their interventions in WWII, Vietnam, Afghanistan, Korea, Somalia etc.

wyot wrote:
The economic and human misery resulted from lockdowns. Nothing else. They did not have to happen.


Nothing else? The alternatives are, at least, worthy of consideration. A completely unknown disease arrived and was noted to be highly infectious and lethal.

Nobody knew where it came from or those it would attack next. In terms of race, gender, age, colour, ethnicity, origin, location or even how it was transmitted.

Surely lockdowns, in the absence of any meaningful information, was the most pragmatic and logical option. Though the economic consequences would be inevitable.

In terms of the highest and fastest infections rates per person for any virus, Covid-19 has joined Ebola, MERS and SARS in the top 4 in history.

And is very quickly moving up the league table under this particular rating, and some other criteria.

In just over 6 months, every country on earth has been infected. Unprecedented in that time scale for any disease, plague or pandemic.