Confidence in the safety and efficiency of the comprehensive water cycle has been reinforced during the Covid-19 pandemic, among those citizens who are guaranteed it. Most of them now have a better understanding of a key service that ensures their well-being. This knowledge should serve to reflect on the situation of the 2.1 billion people who do not have running water in their homes. The crisis unleashed by the pandemic threatens the plans of many countries with regard to the universal implementation of access to water and sanitation. Humanity cannot afford it.

The coronavirus has caused a global health crisis, which should help us to deal more effectively and efficiently with other serious diseases that plague the world. The fight against pandemics such as malaria, AIDS and tuberculosis must not be stopped, but must lead us to share knowledge and efforts.

Endemic water-borne diseases kill more than 10,000 children in India each year. COVID-19 now threatens a health system that has proved powerless to cover the 1.3 billion inhabitants of the second most populated country on Earth. The lack of sanitation and hydric stress are factors that increase the risks of the pandemic.

Epidemics and pandemics have marked African history. COVID-19 arrives in the continent overlapping with other endemic diseases, serious medical deficiencies and unmet goals in the access to water and sanitation. The African population is well aware of the power of community spirit. It is their most powerful weapon in the fight against the pandemic and we can all learn from it.

The adoption of the circular economy in the complete water cycle is presented as the best option for achieving water security for large areas of the world in the face of climate change and demographic imbalances. The new productive model requires a communication challenge to achieve awareness and citizen participation in the understanding that the water cycle is a universal natural capital, knows no borders and is vital for the future of mankind.

The COVID-19 pandemic is an unavoidable crisis that threatens the health and work of each one of us. It is a disaster that compromises the attainment of the SDGs, affecting us all. Evolving from an individual perspective to a collective intelligence is what will allow us to overcome it. And we need to do it now, the virus leaves us no margin in terms of time.

The health crisis caused by the COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted the importance of handwashing with soap and water as one of the keys to halting the spread of the disease. However, only three out of five people all around the world have basic facilities for this elementary standard of hygiene. Deaths from failure to do so amount to hundreds of people every day, most of them children.

The denial of climate change or its anthropogenic causes is a position that, although defended by a minority, has powerful political and economic allies that amplify and encourage it. The distortion of information and demagogy are favored by the inhibition caused by an excess of superficial and purely alarming information. Communicating by raising awareness while educating is the best antidote to denial and the way to solutions.