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The United Nations urges governments to focus on mental health services as people around the world face the coronavirus pandemic.
“After decades of neglect and low investment in mental health services, the COVID-19 pandemic is now hitting families and communities with additional mental stress,” UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said Thursday.
He said that health workers, old and young, and those with pre-existing mental health conditions or who are dealing with conflict and crisis are at the greatest risk.
“The United Nations is firmly committed to creating a world where everyone, everywhere, has someone to turn to for psychological support,” said Guterres. “I urge governments, civil society, health authorities and others to urgently unite to address the mental health dimension of this pandemic.”
The UN chief’s message followed one from the World Health Organization saying that the virus that has so far infected more than 4.3 million people and killed some 300,000 may become endemic like HIV, the virus. which causes AIDS.
It could remain embedded in communities even if a vaccine is found, WHO chief emergency officer Mike Ryan said during a virtual news conference from Geneva.
“HIV has not disappeared, but we have come to terms with the virus,” he said.
Around 100 organizations worldwide are working on the development of a coronavirus vaccine. Even if they find one that works, containing the virus will require “massive effort,” Ryan said.
While some countries are relaxing the closing orders, the pandemic has had a huge economic effect.
A UN report expects the world economy to shrink by more than 3% this year, a sharp deviation from January, when the world body forecast growth of 2.5% worldwide.
The pandemic may also force change at the annual meeting of world leaders in September at the United Nations General Assembly in New York, the city most affected by the coronavirus outbreak.
In an interview with Paris Match, UN chief Guterres said that “it is unlikely that thousands of representatives from around the world will be able to meet in New York,” but that the world body is looking for digital alternatives. He said that member states would make the final decision. This year is the 75th anniversary of the UN and the meeting was expected to take on additional meaning.
In New Zealand, officials reported that there were no new cases again on Thursday, as the nation allowed the reopening of shopping malls, stores and restaurants. The move is part of the country’s organized reopening after a strict one-month shutdown, and people have yet to observe the rules of social distance and limits on meeting size.
In the United States, whistleblower Rick Bright warned a congressional committee on Thursday that the government has not developed a plan to fairly distribute a coronavirus vaccine when it becomes available. Bright said the United States could experience “the darkest winter in modern history” unless leaders act decisively.
Last week, nearly 3 million laid-off US workers applied for unemployment benefits, as the pandemic forced more companies to cut more jobs, according to the Labor Department. The number of people who have joined the ranks of the unemployed in the two months after the outbreak forced millions of companies to close now is about 36 million.
Margaret Besheer contributed to this story from New York.
