On 11 March, when the World Health Organization declared Covid- 19 a pandemic, its Director-General Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus expressed confidence that time was still on our side. “All countries can still change the course of this pandemic… We’re in this together,” he said. Together, countries in the global North and South face an unprecedented emergency. Two months on, and with the global toll of more than four million confirmed cases and 283,000 recorded deaths still rising, the virus continues to destroy lives across borders and boundaries, territories and time-zones. Left unchecked, recent modelling suggests that tens of millions of people could die worldwide, with the UN projecting that deaths in Africa alone could range between 300,000 and 3.3 million, depending on the action taken…

Tomilola Ajayi, James Macintyre, Claire Meeghan, Joe Ware. (2020) Tipping Point: How the Covid-19 pandemic threatens to push the world’s poorest to the brink of survival. ChristianAid.