With the deadly Coronavirus looming over everyone’s heads, many are stuck wondering where their next meal will come from. Although global hunger has been prevalent for as long as we can remember, the Coronavirus has made things increasingly worse for both Americans and those around the world because there has been both a lack of resources as well as a lack of jobs that can provide a steady income to families so that they are able to eat.
According to the New York Times,
The world has never faced a hunger emergency like this, experts say. It could double the number of people facing acute hunger to 265 million by the end of this year.
To put things into perspective, people desperate to eat in the biggest slum in Kenya’s capital set off a stampede during a recent flour and cooking oil giveaway, leaving many injured and two people dead. In India, thousands of workers are lining up twice a day to keep hunger at bay for bread and fried vegetables, and throughout Colombia, poor households hang red clothing and flags from their windows and balconies as a cry for help to show that they are hungry.
Often, the coronavirus has been considered an equalizer because it has sickened the rich and poor alike, but when it comes to food, the commonality ends because people in poverty, including large segments of poorer nations, now are growing increasingly more hungry and face the prospect of starvation. In addition to that, the sudden loss in income for countless people who were already living hand-to-mouth, the collapse in oil prices, widespread shortages of hard currency from tourism drying up, overseas workers not having earnings to send home, and ongoing problems like climate change, violence, population dislocations, and humanitarian disasters have accentuated the issue of widespread hunger around the world.
As many go hungry, there is a concern in a number of countries that food shortages will lead to social discord, and as the Coronavirus continues to loom over us, we have to be mindful of the ways in which food will no longer be readily available to a vast majority of people around the world.
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