The United Nations lamented what it called a “dramatic worsening” of world hunger last year, saying much of that is likely connected to the pandemic. A report issued jointly by five U.N. agencies said hunger outpaced population growth in 2020, with nearly 10 percent of all people are estimated to be undernourished. It said the sharpest rise in hunger came in Africa, where 21 percent of the people are estimated to be undernourished.

 Children paid a high price, with 149 million of those younger than 5 estimated to have stunted growth since they are too short for their age. More than 45 million children are too thin for their height. “A full 3 billion adults and children remain locked out of healthy diets, largely due to excessive costs,’’ the U.N. agencies said. “In many parts of the world, the pandemic has triggered brutal recessions and jeopardized access to food,’’ the United Nations said in a summary of its findings. “Yet even before the pandemic, hunger was spreading; progress on malnutrition lagged.”

 “Disturbingly, in 2020 hunger shot up in both absolute and proportional terms, outpacing population growth,” the report’s authors concluded. The report found that some 9.9 percent of the world’s population was estimated to have been undernourished last year, compared to 8.4 percent in 2019. The United Nations said that the pandemic further undercut a U.N. goal of zero hunger by 2030. Based on current trends, it estimates that the goal will be “missed by a margin of nearly 660 million people,” and approximately 30 million of that number “may be linked to the pandemic’s lasting effects.”

 The State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World report was prepared by U.N. agencies including the Rome-based Food and Agriculture Organization, the World Food Program and the International Fund for Agricultural Development. The other two agencies were the United Nations Children’s Fund, commonly known as UNICEF, which is based in New York, and the World Health Organization, or WHO, headquartered in Geneva. The report was described by the agencies as the “first global assessment of its kind in the pandemic era.” Among the U.N.’s recommendations, was one calling for strengthening “the resilience of the most vulnerable to economic adversity,” such as through programs to lessen the impact of “pandemic-style shocks” or steep food price increases.

 While the Covid Pandemic is not the same as the Great Tribulation of the Book of Revelation, it does give us a glimpse of the types of things that will occur. The Third Horseman of the Apocalypse, the black horse, represents pandemic, plague and devastation. Revelation 6: 5-6 states, “And when he had opened the third seal, I heard the third beast say, Come and see. And I beheld, and lo a black horse; and he that sat on him had a pair of balances in his hand. And I heard a voice in the midst of the four beasts say, “A measure of wheat for a penny, and three measures of barley for a penny; and see thou hurt not the oil and the wine.”

 What the black horse represents is the massive famine and plagues that will occur in the future, presumably after the war that the red horse brings. We also see John describe the inflation of prices on goods that will occur, just as we are seeing with the Covid Pandemic. Thus, the Covid Pandemic, even as bad as it has been, is only a small glimpse of the type of famine, devastation and inflation that will occur during the Great Tribulation.