The COVID-19 Pandemic and the International Geographical Union

Abstract

Having broken out in late 2019, COVID-19 has resulted in a once-in-a-century health emergency that has rapidly evolved into a global socio-economic crisis. As of March 2022, more than 450 million people were infected by the SARS-CoV-2 virus, the cause of COVID-19, resulting in more than six million deaths (WHO, Coronavirus disease (COVID-19) situation dashboard, 2022). The medical systems of many countries have been stretched to the verge of collapse and more than half of the global labor force has stood down. Not only has the pandemic doubled the number of people at risk of starvation to 270 million (Nature, 589:329-330, 2021), but it also pushed 100 million people into poverty in 2020, triggering the worst global recession since World War II (Blake and Wadhwa, 2020 year in review: the impact of COVID-19 in 12 charts, 2020), and increasing the risk of exposure to other pandemics related to ecosystem degradation (IPBES, Workshop report on biodiversity and pandemics of the intergovernmental platform on biodiversity and ecosystem services. Retrieved from Bonn, Germany, 2020; Yin et al., Geogr Sustain 2(1):68-73, 2021). The normal functioning of many organizations has also been hampered by the pandemic and disruptions to the global travel and tourism industry have been unprecedented. By way of an example, travel restrictions led to the postponement of the 2020 34th International Geographical Congress to the following year and, ultimately, the decision was made to transition to an entirely online format for the event.