UN chief says COVID-19 is 'the greatest crisis of our age'

The head of the United Nations said on Sunday that “the COVID-19 pandemic is the greatest crisis of our age".

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres opened an online session of the World Health Summit with a call for worldwide solidarity in the global crisis and demanded that developed countries support health systems in countries that are short of resources.

The coronavirus pandemic is the overarching theme of the summit, which originally had been scheduled for Berlin. Several of the leaders and experts who spoke at the opening stressed the need to cooperate across borders.

“No one is safe from COVID-19. No one is safe until we are all safe from it,” said German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier. “Even those who conquer the virus within their own borders remain prisoners within these borders until it is conquered everywhere.” More than 42 million have been infected with the virus and over 1 million people have died of COVID-19.