Today’s children are the pandemic generation. For millions, the future is now grim.

While we are understandably consumed with the daily, seemingly unstoppable firehose of news about the most dangerous pandemic in a century, little attention has been paid to the long-term impact of this crisis on the world's most vulnerable children.

It’s impossible to overstate what this crisis will mean for the pandemic generation. This prolonged, unpredictable and highly contagious disease is upending their education, family lives, social relationships, resiliency and opportunities to pull themselves out of multigenerational cycles of poverty. The result might be a chasmic gap between relatively affluent children and those in poverty deeper than at any other time in modern history.

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Co-authored with Karen Redlener, Executive Vice President, Chief Administrative Officer & Co-Founder, Children’s Health Fund.