"Moral failure": More than a year into the pandemic, 1/3 of the globe lacks access to safe drinking water or decent toilets

It's been more than a year since COVID-19 was declared a pandemic. Many countries have started to recover as vaccines continue to become more readily available, but for much of the globe, one vital component to life remains inaccessible: Access to safe drinking water. 

At a United Nations meeting on Thursday to address water-related goals and targets as part of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, United Nations General Assembly president Volkan Bozkir said that, at this point, the world has committed a "moral failure" in getting everyone access to safe drinking water.  Bozkir made his point with startling statistics about the state of global water access: Roughly a third of the entire world's population, 2.2 billion people, do not have access to clean drinking water, he said.