Guterres: Virus highlights deep gobal inequalities

The U.N. secretary-general made a sweeping call Saturday to end the global inequalities that sparked this year’s massive anti-racism protests and have been further exposed by the coronavirus pandemic.

“COVID-19 has been likened to an X-ray, revealing fractures in the fragile skeleton of the societies we have built,” Antonio Guterres said as he delivered the Nelson Mandela Annual Lecture.

“It is exposing fallacies and falsehoods everywhere: The lie that free markets can deliver health care for all, the fiction that unpaid care work is not work, the delusion that we live in a post-racist world, the myth that we are all in the same boat.”

He said developed countries are strongly invested in their own survival and have “failed to deliver the support needed to help the developing world through these dangerous times.”

The U.N. chief's address marked what would have been the birthday of former South African president and Nobel Peace Prize winner Mandela.

The speech by the U.N. chief took aim at the vast inequality of wealth - “The 26 richest people in the world hold as much wealth as half the global population,” Guterres said - and other inequalities involving race, gender, class and place of birth.

These, he said, are seen in the world's fragmented response to the pandemic as governments, businesses and even individuals are accused of hoarding badly needed testing, medical and other supplies for themselves.

The U.N. chief called for a new model of global governance with inclusive and equal participation.