Covid can cause $8.5 trillion loss in global output: UN chief Antonio Guterres

United Nations: UN chief Antonio Guterres has warned that the Covid-19 pandemic will cause unimaginable devastation, usher in hunger and famine of historic proportions and lead to a loss of $8.5 trillion in global output - the sharpest contraction since the Great Depression - if nations did not respond with unity and solidarity.

"We must avoid it. The pandemic has demonstrated our fragility. Despite all the technological and scientific advances of recent decades, we are in an unprecedented human crisis, because of a microscopic virus," the UN Secretary General said on Thursday to the high-level event on Financing for Development.

He underlined the need for the world to respond to the unprecedented crisis with unity and solidarity. "Unless we act now, the Covid-19 pandemic will cause unimaginable devastation and suffering around the world.

Hunger and famine of historic proportions. Sixty million more people pushed into extreme poverty. Up to half the global workforce – 1.6 billion people – without livelihoods," Guterres said.