Challenges and Opportunities From COVID‐19 for Global Sustainable Development

• Published date: 01 December 2020
• Author: Padmanabhan Seshaiyer,Connie L. McNeely
• Date: 01 December 2020
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1002/wmh3.380

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doi: 10.1002/wmh3.380

© 2020 Policy Studies Organization

Challenges and Opportunities From COVID‐19 for

Global Sustainable Development

Padmanabhan Seshaiyer and Connie L. McNeely

We live in unprecedented times, faced with a pandemic of monumental proportions. Not only has

COVID‐19 wreaked havoc across the world, it also has exposed fundamental weaknesses in healthcare

systems in a number of countries. We identify challenges and opportunities that COVID‐19 presents

by connecting the immediate need to curb the spread of the disease to the United Nations sustainable

development goals (SDGs). Considering broad social, political, and economic impacts, we focus on

health disparities and the severe effects of the crisis on some populations, especially disadvantaged and

underserved ones, and countries relative to others. In particular, we identify key targets for achieving

SDG‐3(Good Health and Wellbeing)that will help strengthen capacities for scaling up healthcare and

policy responses to understand, combat, and control COVID‐19.

KEY WORDS: COVID‐19, coronavirus, health care, pandemic, sustainable development goals

Introduction

Ever since the identification of the cause of the outbreak of COVID‐19 in late

2019 and its pandemic designation in March of 2020, research and development

activities have been evolving into a broader understanding of the epidemiology of

the novel coronavirus as a “super‐spreader”of infectious disease. Along with these

efforts, several pharmaceutical and non‐pharmaceutical interventions for infection

prevention and control have been recommended by major health agencies, such as

the World Health Organization (WHO)and United States Centers for Disease

Control and Prevention (CDC), to mitigate the morbidity and mortality associated

with COVID‐19.

Numerous examples throughout history have led to humans learning more

about the nature of infectious diseases, including the Plague in 542 CE that claimed

millions of lives and the Black Death in the 14th century, which was one of the first

known recorded pandemics (McNeill, 1998). Another in this list was Smallpox that

killed people in numbers that exceeded those of any who have fought in wars in

history. To this date, however, Smallpox is the only disease that human beings have

been able to eradicate completely. Cholera, which erupted in the 19th century,

remains a concern and still does not have a complete cure.

Although the Plague, Black Death, Smallpox, and Cholera impacted several

million people, it was not until the 1918 influenza pandemic that people experienced