UpFront

COVID orphans: A pandemic within a pandemic

‘This is a problem already happening, and it’s getting worse and fast,’ warns Oxford professor, Lucie Cluver.

A child loses an important caregiver to the coronavirus every six seconds, says Lucie Cluver, a professor of child and family social work at Oxford University and the co-leader of the COVID-19 Emergency Parenting Response.

According to Cluver, those staggering numbers will continue to rise: “In April, there were 1.5 million children who had lost a caregiver. Now, in November, there are 5.2 million children. Within the next year, there are going to be 10 million children.”

This week on UpFront, Marc Lamont Hill asks: Are we prepared to deal with this crisis?