Last year, 5 million children under the age of five died. That’s a terrible number, but at the same time the result of decades of progress. 75 years ago, four times as many children died. In the time since, an unfathomable total of 1 billion. As Max Roser once put it so succinctly: «The world is awful. The world is much better. The world can be much better.»

From Weekly Filet #550, in November 2025.