 So it kind of feels as if there is a light at the end of the tunnel when it comes to COVID-19 since we now do have multiple vaccines on the way. Having said that, though, even when we reach herd immunity and things get back to normal, or at least some semblance of normal, I don't think many people have truly thought about the long-term aftermath of this pandemic. But right now, before we can even talk about herd immunity, it is ravaging this country. We have 100,000 people in America in hospitals. We saw nearly 3,000 deaths in a single day, all while the president does absolutely nothing to contain the virus. He's still complaining about the election that took place last month as this business insider article points out. And I mean, when numbers get so big, it's kind of like we can't even imagine it, right? It's unfathomable quite literally. So think about this. We're reaching 300,000 deaths due to COVID-19. We may hit 300,000 before the end of the year at the rate we're going. And on top of that, to hit almost 3,000 deaths in a single day, that's comparable to 9-11. So we're seeing the equivalent of a 9-11 take place, and a lot of people don't even realize that it's happening, right? Because we've become so accustomed to it. But I mean, even when we have the vaccines and we reach herd immunity, the long-lasting effects of COVID-19 are going to be there for quite some time, not just in terms of health and the long-term side effects and, you know, lung damage from this virus. But economically speaking, this is going to cause a lot of devastation. But just in the short term, when you look at how many people at home are affected, CBS News reports nearly 19 million Americans could lose their homes when the moratorium on evictions expires on December 31st. But that's just what's happening here at home. Because globally, the UN is actually warning that extreme poverty could surge by 2030 without immediate major economic intervention from governments. Now, as Kenny Stansel of Comet Dreams reports, a harrowing study released by the United Nations early Thursday reveals that the global coronavirus pandemic is setting the stage for a massive surge in the number of people pushed into poverty worldwide over the next decade. A phenomenon that only immediate interventions in the form of ambitious investments in public health, social safety net programs, and a green transition can help avoid. According to the findings of the new study by the United Nations Development Program, the severe long-term effects of the global pandemic could push an additional 207 million people into extreme poverty over the next decade. On top of the current pandemic trajectory, that would bring the total number of individuals living in extreme poverty to over 1 billion by 2030. This at a time of rampant and nearly unparalleled inequality as the fortunes of the world's richest individuals and families continue to soar. While the UNDP makes clear the looming intensification of poverty is not a foregone conclusion, only with urgent action can such a scenario be avoided. As this new poverty research highlights, the COVID-19 pandemic is at a tipping point, and the choices leaders take now could take the world in very different directions, said UNDP Administrator Akim Steiner. The analysis considers various recovery pathways and predicts how each one would affect the UN's sustainable development goals. Under the baseline scenario based on current mortality rates and growth projections, 44 million more people will likely be pushed into extreme poverty by 2030 than would have been expected before the COVID-19 pandemic altered the world's development trajectory. In a high-damage scenario in which the recovery is protracted, meaning that 80% of economic productivity losses remain after 10 years, 207 million additional people are projected to be living in poverty, bringing the total number to 1 billion by the end of the decade. Now, I'm not going to assume that the worst-case scenario will in fact play out, but even if we get the best-case scenario, it still looks really grim, and this is after the pandemic. Once we get it under control worldwide, this is the devastation that it caused that will live on. It's sad to think about all of this because on top of the pandemic, we have a climate catastrophe looming, and I don't want to be overly grim here because there's only so much that we can focus on without getting too down, but we have to think about these things and really start taking action, governmentally speaking, but when you have worldwide capitalism dominant, how do we even begin to put pressure on governments? Like, if one government is successfully pressured by its people, well, there's still other governments that have to take action to mitigate poverty. We can't even get the United States government to offer us a second stimulus, and what we're seeing so far at the time I record this video is another stimulus that doesn't even give people another payment. Like, in the United States alone, the way that we responded to this virus is comparable to what we'd expect from a failed state, and I've said this before, so it sounds kind of redundant, but it really is shocking to see this. We're the richest country in the world, and we saw a one-time payment of $1,200. I don't know what to say. How many businesses are going to go bankrupt before the pandemic is under control? So I don't want this to be a video that makes people overly depressed, but we have to grapple with these things. You can only distract yourself for so long until reality catches up with you, and just, like, thinking about not just the long-term impact caused by this pandemic at home, but worldwide, it really is overwhelming, and as a species, you know, human beings are going to have to come together, not just for this, but climate change as well, because we have so many issues, and if we're going to make it to the other end of all of these crises as a species, we're going to have to come up with innovative solutions, and part of that means we have a serious conversation about global capitalism and the way that it limits us from taking meaningful action. So this is all talk that's, like, way too ambitious. I mean, if we get even incremental steps to ameliorate this disaster, that would be unexpected, but I mean, these are things that we have to talk about and think about, because even when the pandemic is gone, its impact is going to be here for quite some time.