The UNESCO Courier - Volume 2020, Issue 3, 2020

The higher value placed on human life, the rise of the influence of health services, the medicalization of our lives, the extension of state power – these phenomena did not arise from the crisis caused by the pandemic, but were revealed by it.

Social inequalities, gender violence, poor housing, failing health systems – the health crisis has exposed the fractures that divide our societies. To change the world, we will have to address challenges that we have not been able to face up to so far.

With new constraints on welcoming visitors, the Queens Museum in New York City – like many other institutions around the world – is reflecting on how best to redefine our ties to art and culture. The museum’s team is working on an inclusive model that places artists, educators and residents at the heart of its activities, as it seeks to reinvent itself.

More than 1.5 billion students – or ninety per cent of the world’s student population – have been affected by temporary closures of schools and universities in 2020 due to the health crisis, according to UNESCO. Educational institutions have been forced, almost overnight, to switch to remote learning platforms and devise alternative teaching methods.

The health crisis, and the subsequent widespread lockdowns worldwide, have led to a surge in violence against women. Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka, Executive Director of UN Women, warns that women’s rights could be diminished as a result of the pandemic.

Declining incomes, school drop-outs, the growth of informal work, and steep rises in unemployment. The social consequences of the health crisis for the inhabitants of the Latin America and the Caribbean region have been massive. The author calls for the establishment of a fairer and more supportive social system to avoid a deepening of inequalities.

Disinformation and conspiracy theories have proliferated on social media during the pandemic. Black tea, neem leaves and pepper soup have been touted as miracle cures for COVID-19, in Africa and elsewhere. To combat this infodemic, digital platforms must be made more accountable, fake news tracked and called out, and media literacy developed.

Nathalie Strub-Wourgaft is one of the initiators of the COVID-19 Clinical Research Coalition, launched in April 2020. It brings together scientists, physicians, donors and policymakers from over thirty countries, to accelerate research on the disease in resource-poor nations. She argues that research must be specifically adapted to the needs of these countries.

The global health crisis has highlighted the resilience of some indigenous communities. But above all, it has revealed the fragility of these populations – whose poverty, malnutrition and poor access to health care makes them particularly vulnerable to infectious diseases.

Today’s borders are no longer necessarily made of bricks and barbed wire. They are increasingly becoming moving barriers that rely on cutting-edge technologies and complex regulations to impose travel restrictions on citizens. The COVID-19 pandemic has further accentuated this phenomenon.

The world after the pandemic will be different from the one that we’ve always known. It will be more benevolent towards the unknown, and more respectful towards living species, predicts one of China’s best-known contemporary poets.

Isolation, loss of income, crushing domestic burdens – women photographers have been hit hard by the lockdown imposed to curb the COVID-19 pandemic. Faced with this unprecedented situation, more than 400 women photographers have come together in a unique collaborative project, The Journal – which started spontaneously in mid-March 2020, following a call on Facebook by the Women Photograph community.

Epidemics and pandemics are not new phenomena. Leprosy, plague, cholera and smallpox have all left their deadly mark on human history. They have also led humans to question themselves, and often result in positive change.

The closure of schools and universities around the world to prevent the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic, caused a major education crisis that reached its peak in mid-April 2020. Between 16 and 19 April, schools shut down in more than 190 countries, affecting 1.57 billion children and young people – over ninety per cent of all learners. Throughout the health crisis, UNESCO monitored the situation globally, by publishing a map of school closures on its website.