Poor people die as a result of COVID while the rich get rich, Oxfam warns | Coronavirus pandemic News

The wealth of the 10 richest men has doubled in the coronavirus pandemic, sparking a disparity that kills at least 21,300 people every day, according to a new report released by Oxfam International on Monday.

“We are entering 2022 with unprecedented concern,” warns Oxfam’s Inequality Kills report (adding link), arguing that the current global situation of extreme inequality is “economic violence” against the world’s poorest people and nations.

In this profoundly unbalanced world, structural and systemic policies and political options are biased in favor of the richest and most powerful, harming the majority of ordinary people around the world, the report said, highlighting the division of the COVID-19 vaccine. a prime example.

“Millions of people would be alive today if they were vaccinated, but they are dead, denied a chance while large pharmaceutical corporations continue to have a monopoly on these technologies,” Oxfam said.

The report estimates that billions of women and girls in Africa and Latin America and the Caribbean have more wealth than 252 men. And the 10 richest men in the world have more than 3.1 billion richest people.

Moreover, while the rich were greatly enriched by the pandemic, they suffered from the income of 99 percent of humanity.

Oxfam’s report is usually released ahead of the annual meeting of the World Economic Forum (WEF) in Davos, Switzerland, but the gathering of the world’s richest and most powerful has also been postponed this year due to the pandemic.

Last week, WEF released its 2022 Global Risk Report (PDF) warned that the economic recovery of coronavirus, many of which are based on the spread of vaccines, has deepened divisions between nations and nations.

He also stressed that the growing inequality of the pandemic will make it even more difficult for tensions, resentments and national responses to climate change, economic inequality and social instability.

What went wrong?

In recent decades, the United Nations and governments have made efforts to tackle poverty and distribute access to technology and education in a more balanced way, and have led the world to serious inequality for decades.

“These current divisions are linked to the historical heritage of racism, including slavery and colonialism,” the Oxfam report said.

According to the report, since 1995, the world’s largest single percent has accounted for almost 20 times more global wealth than the bottom 50 percent. And the pandemic has gotten a lot worse.

The low interest rates and government incentives designed to help the economy recover from the 2020 COVID-19 coup have also boosted the prices of stocks and other assets, making the rich even richer.

“Billions poured into the financial markets to save the economy have caused millions of people to explode, leaving the pandemic poorer than ever before,” said Gabriela Bucher, executive director of Oxfam.

Wealth inequality does not only harm people. It also hurts the planet. According to Oxfam, twenty billion of the richest millions emit 8,000 times more carbon than the poorest.

Vaccine equity and super-rich taxation

People living in low- and middle-income countries are twice as likely to die as a result of COVID-19 infection than those living in rich countries, according to a study cited by Oxfam.

In some countries, the poorest people are nearly four times more likely to die as a result of COVID-19, Oxfam says.

“Many have lost their jobs and lost millions of lives. Women, racial groups and South Global citizens are the most affected, ”Bucher told Al Jazeera.

Oxfam says governments have the power to radically change the path and reduce “economic violence” at its roots by laying the foundations for a more egalitarian world.

A good start, he says, is to impose a provisional tax on the profits of the 10 richest men in COVID-19, which would generate $ 812 billion, according to the report.

“We need to recover this huge billionaire bond with new taxes on wealth and capital. It’s simple, it makes sense: tax the super-rich and spend the money on nurses, hospitals and vaccines,” Bucher told Al Jazeera.