From the Chief Editor’s Desk
IDN, the flagship of non-profit International Press Syndicate, launched an intensive journalistic coverage focussing on COVID-19 in February 2020. By the end of May 2020, we carried nearly 130 in-depth news features, analyses and viewpoints.
Contributors were from the network of INPS-IDN journalists, other professional journalists and experts from around the world.
They dealt with the impact of devastating pandemic worldwide. A growing number – running into several million – were infected. Several hundred thousand died.
The COVID-19 pandemic has had far-reaching consequences on the spread of the disease itself and efforts to quarantine it. As the SARS-CoV-2 virus has spread around the globe, concerns have shifted from supply-side manufacturing issues to decreased business in the services sector.
The pandemic caused the largest global recession in history, with more than a third of the global population being placed on lockdown. While the monetary impact on the travel and trade industry is yet to be estimated, it is likely to be in the billions and increasing.
As the pandemic spread, global conferences, including those by the United Nations, and have been cancelled or postponed.
In fact, the UN Headquarters in New York and the UN elsewhere, particularly in Vienna and Geneva, have been closed until further notice. Press conferences by the Secretary-General and briefings by his spokesman as well as other senior UN officials have been taking place online.
European leaders, in particular, have been predicting a ‘new normal’ once the COVID-19 subsides. But they have not explained whether a possible new normal would put an end to humanity’s ruthless exploitation of the planet Earth. More than one IDN analysis addresses the vital issue of restoring harmony between human beings and nature in its entirety – and this for the benefit of both. [INPS-IDN – 31 May 2020]
Please visit https://www.indepthnews.net/index.php/sustainability/covid-19 for our full coverage.
Photo: Collage by Katsuhiro Asagiri, INPS-IDN, Multimedia Director.
