It is the monthly immunization day, and Salma Khatun is waiting for the boat to come take her across the Brahmaputra to Ramhari Char. She holds in one hand an ice box, filled with vaccines she will be administering later that day, and on the other, an umbrella, to protect herself from the fierce summer sun. Salma is a nurse at the only health center in Ramhari Char, an unelectrified island village, one of the many scattered throughout the vast Brahmaptura. In the absence of electricity and storage at the village, health workers like Salma travel to the mainland on the first Wednesday of every month to collect vaccines for immunizing children back at her health center.
The pandemic is disproportionately affecting women workers. Governments should prioritize policies that offset the effects the COVID-19 crisis is having on their jobs.
The Spanish Flu of 1918 did not respect borders nor social class. In response, Russia, followed by Germany, France and the United Kingdom were amongst the first countries to put centralized public healthcare systems in place. Now, just over 100 years later, the COVID-19 pandemic is radically re-shaping our daily lives, including an area that has needs an urgent update for the 21st Century – our financial lives.
As countries around the world continue to battle the spread of COVID-19, economic forecasts remain grim. The World Bank estimates a 5.2% contraction in our global GDP for 2020.
