The yearlong coronavirus pandemic has caused more “mass trauma” to the global population than the entirety of World War II, according to the head of the World Health Organization.

“After the Second World War, the world has experienced mass trauma, because second world war affected many, many lives. And now, even with this COVID pandemic, with bigger magnitude, more lives have been affected,” WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said in a weekend news conference.

“Almost the whole world is affected, each and every individual on the surface of the world actually has been affected. . . . And that means mass trauma, which is beyond proportion, even bigger than what the world experienced after the Second World War.”

He added that “when there is mass trauma, it affects communities for many years to come.”

World War II was the deadliest military conflict in history, resulting in an estimated seventy to eighty-five million deaths, or roughly 3 percent of the world’s population at the time.

According to the latest data compiled by Johns Hopkins University, there have been a hundred seventeen million confirmed coronavirus infections and 2.6 million related fatalities.

Tedros’s comments came in response to a question about whether countries should take the pandemic’s impact on the economy and people’s mental health more into account amid the ongoing battle against the virus and its variants.

“There are variations in terms of the impact that this has had on individuals, whether you have lost a loved one, or a family member or friend to this virus,” Dr. Maria Van Kerkhove, head of the WHO’s emerging diseases and zoonosis unit, said during a press briefing.

“Whether you’ve lost your job, children who haven’t been in school, people who are forced to stay home in very difficult situations.”

She noted that the pandemic’s mental health toll will likely continue to be a major issue going forward.

“There needs to be a lot more emphasis by governments, by communities, by families, by individuals to look after our well-being,” Van Kerkhove added.

The WHO has previously stated that it is “premature” and “unrealistic” to believe that the pandemic will suddenly end by 2022. Dr. Michael Ryan, director of the WHO’s emergencies program, contended that the world’s singular focus should be to keep coronavirus infections and related deaths at the lowest possible levels.

“I think it will be very premature and I think unrealistic to think that we’re going to finish with this virus by the end of the year,” he said in a recent media briefing.

“If we’re smart, we can finish with the hospitalizations and the deaths and the tragedy associated with this pandemic. . . . If the vaccines begin to impact not only on death and not only on hospitalization but have a significant impact on transmission dynamics and transmission risk, then I believe we will accelerate toward controlling this pandemic.”

Ryan, however, warned against complacency that is currently seen in many countries. “Right now, the virus is very much in control,” he said.

Ethen Kim Lieser is a Minneapolis-based Science and Tech Editor who has held posts at Google, The Korea Herald, Lincoln Journal Star, AsianWeek, and Arirang TV. Follow or contact him on LinkedIn.  

Image: Reuters