CoronaCrime #43

The COVID-19 pandemic has taken a terrible toll on lives, illness, and economic devastation and it is having diverse effects on violence and crime. Daily Prevention News publishes weekly a Corona Crime Issue dedicated to collect related news and information.

1. COVID-19: Schools for more than 168 million children globally have been completely closed for almost a full year
   UNICEF unveils ‘Pandemic Classroom’ at United Nations Headquarters in New York to call attention to the need for governments to prioritise the reopening of schools. The analysis on school closures report notes that 14 countries worldwide have remained largely closed since March 2020 to February 2021. Two-thirds of those countries are in Latin America and the Caribbean, affecting nearly 98 million schoolchildren. Of the 14 countries, Panama has kept schools closed for the most days, followed by El Salvador, Bangladesh, and Bolivia. Source: UNICEF
2. COVID-19 mental health impact and responses in low-income and middle-income countries: reimagining global mental health
   Most of the global population live in low-income and middle-income countries (LMICs), which have historically received a small fraction of global resources for mental health. The COVID-19 pandemic has spread rapidly in many of these countries. This Review examines the mental health implications of the COVID-19 pandemic in LMICs. Source: The Lancet
3. International labour trafficking: A neglected social origin of COVID-19
   COVID-19 and international labour trafficking interact in a complex two-way manner that is mediated by sociobiological factors. In one way, the pandemic magnifies socioeconomic inequalities, such as poverty and unemployment in workers’ countries of origin, which heighten the risk of victimisation of workers through labour trafficking. Conversely, labour trafficking serves as a social origin for COVID-19 through a unique set of social disadvantages–i.e., reluctance to seek medical care due to fear of legal prosecution–that make infected workers potential disease vectors which threaten the health of the host country's population. Source: The Lancet
4. European Green Deal as social vaccine to overcome COVID-19 health & economic crisis
   The COVID-19 emergency questions preparedness of European countries towards pandemics. It has been argued that this crisis results from the merging of an infectious epidemic and a number of underlying conditions including non-communicable diseases and frailties that recognize socio-economic inequalities as crucial predisposing or even prognostic factors. Moreover, COVID-19 is probably originating from endemic zoonosis and might be regarded in the light of ecosystems’ disequilibrium according to a comprehensive “One Health Approach”. Environmental pollution has been questioned to worsen COVID-19 epidemic outbreaks, as those areas experiencing the highest levels of air pollution seem to have suffered from the worst consequences of the pandemic. Source: The Lancet
5. What was the effect of COVID-19 and social unrest on crime in U.S. cities last year?
   Homicides weren’t the only crime that rose last year: there were also increases in aggravated assault (+6%) and motor vehicle theft (+13%). Gun assaults have steadily increased for the past few years, and that trend continued (+8%). Source: South Seattle Emerald
6. 4 ways to build resilience to digital risks in the COVID-19 era
   The COVID-19 pandemic is forcing governments, companies and societies to address digital risks in dramatic fashion. With or without rapid and sustained vaccine rollout, it is likely that many of these threats will endure for the foreseeable future. Source: Igarapé Institute

Please find more information and news about the interlinkages between the Coronavirus, Crime and Violence in German published every Tuesday on our German News Service Tägliche Präventions News.