Gates Package — page 1074

1 Across every age group, 3 And Chapter 8 Go after malaria, HIV, and TB too The world's response to COVID has been exceptional. In December 2019, no one had heard of the disease. Within eighteen months, multiple vaccines had been developed, proven safe and effective, delivered, and given to more than 3 billion people, or roughly 40 percent of the earth's population. Humans have never responded faster or more effectively to a global disease. We accomplished in a year and a half something that normally takes a half a decade or more. Yet within these phenomenal numbers, there were, and are, startling disparities. To begin with, the pandemic has not affected everyone equally. As you may remember from Chapter 4, Black and Latino third graders in the United States have fallen twice as far behind in their classwork as white and Asian American students have.1 Across every age group, Black and Latino people and Native Americans are twice as likely to die from COVID as white people in the U.S. are.2 The pandemic's overall impact was toughest in the world's low- and middle-income countries. In 2020, it pushed nearly 100 million people around the world into extreme poverty, an increase of about 15 percent and the first time the number had increased in decades.3 And only a third of low- and middle-income economies are expected to return to pre-pandemic income levels in 2022, while virtually all advanced economies are expected to.