COVID-19: 5–17 million (2020-current)
This one might hit close to home, but anyway. In December 2019, a series of unusual pneumonia cases cropped up in Wuhan, China. Initially, health officials offered some sort of reassurance: the new coronavirus wasn’t passed from human to human.
Well, that proved to be false in a matter of DAYS. In late January 2020, the WHO declared COVID-19 a global health emergency. By March, there were cases in 114 countries.
Nations from all over the world cascaded into lockdown. A year and a half later, 17 million people were estimated to have died. Many survivors still suffer from lingering symptoms.
The risks of the pandemic, but also of the social and economic disruptions, the psychological toll on healthcare workers from all over the world, and the deepening class inequality are only some of the issues that resurfaced with this virus.
