UN chief says COVID-19 pandemic most challenging crisis since Second World War

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"We are facing a global health crisis unlike any in the 75-year history of the United Nations - one that is killing people, spreading human suffering, and upending people's lives. But this is much more than a health crisis. It is a human crisis," Guterres said at the virtual launch of the report.

Later, in response to a question on why he thinks the pandemic is the worst global crisis since the UN was founded, Guterres said "because it is a combination, on one hand, of a disease that represents a threat to everybody in the world and, second, because it has an economic impact that will bring a recession that probably has no parallel in the recent past."

"The combination of the two facts and the risk that it contributes to enhanced instability, enhanced unrest, and enhanced conflict are things that make us believe that this is, indeed, the most challenging crisis we have faced since the Second World War and the one that needs a stronger and more effective response that is only possible in solidarity if everybody come together and if we forget political games and understand that it is humankind that is at stake."

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