**3.2 Food access during pandemic**

Throughout history, mankind has been exposed to several pandemics and epidemics that affected their health and life. In history, humanity faced several epidemics such as the Spanish Flu, Asian Flu, Hong Kong Flu, HIV/AIDS, SARS, Ebola, and Swine Flu [4]. In the last centuries, humans faced Bubonic Plague in the 1300s, smallpox in the 1500s, Spanish Influenza in 1918, and HIV/AIDS in the 1980s. Recently, humans faced SARS in 2002, Bird Flu in 2003, Swine Flu in 2009, MERS in 2012, Ebola in 2012, and Zika in 2015 [39].

A pandemic affects all human activities, and one of them is agriculture and farming production. Limiting people working in these production areas results in food shortages in stores. The limited quantities in food stores and outlets will increase food scarcity. The food items scarcity would increase their prices and add more burden to access. Furthermore, the pandemic spread would require people to be quarantined to protect themselves and that would limit their visits to stores.

A recent pandemic is COVID-19 which is caused by a respiratory disease [18]. The first COViD-19 cases were discovered in Wuhan, China, on January 18, 2020 [40]. After the spread of cases in several countries, the World Health Organization declared COVID-19 as a global pandemic on March 11, 2020 [41]. Based on sequencing technology on the COVID-19 virus, it was found 96.2% of bats as a possible source of SARA-CoV2 [42]. When the pandemic started, the United Nations World Food Program warned the world that by the end of 2020 approximately 265 million people would suffer food insecurity, which is more than 135 million people in food insecurity conditions before the pandemic.

Countries such as the United States announced restrictions on traveling and interactions [43]. Firstly, face masks were mandated mostly in every country and social distancing was highly encouraged [43]. Moreover, negative COVID-19 tests were required in emergencies, 24 hours before travel, to limit the spread in destination countries [43]. Schools were shut down and students adapted to online education for the first time in history. Some countries enforced curfews to limit people's interactions and the spread of the virus. The goal of these restrictions was to contain the pandemic spread, but they had a negative psychological influence on communities.

At the beginning of the pandemic, India had only 36 COVID-19 cases and 7 death cases. On April 5, 2020, the cases were 3577 and 83 deaths but rose rapidly to 508,953 cases and 15,685 deaths by Jun 28, 2020. The government took actions to control the spread by restricting traveling and imposing a lockdown effectively from March 24, 2020, to May 24, 2020, at different levels. In the United States, the first case was documented on January 20, 2020 [44].

In India, the pandemic changed people's consumption patterns [45]. In rural areas, people's income was affected by the lockdown, and people in villages consumed lower-quality food during the pandemic [45]. In Australia, according to a survey study, households' food security decreased because of the pandemic, and that affected people's habits and cooking.

In the beginning phase of the pandemic, people panicked and started buying excess food and household goods. That led to limitations on people's access to sufficient food and changed their food habits and cooking. The lockdown restriction impacted the supply chain through a labor shortage and that affected food availability and access. The pandemic reduced 25% of labor. Moreover, the pandemic affected food availability in poor countries and with low national security. Consumer shopping patterns have changed due to the pandemic increases. The pandemic encouraged businesses and farmers to change their business models and use online ordering, pickup, and delivery.

The FAO admitted the huge loss of food and agriculture by the pandemic. Dealing with the pandemic influence, the FAO advised countries to focus on food requirements for vulnerable communities, supporting social safety programs and supporting small local farmers. The food index documents food prices monthly and during the pandemic in 2020 prices of cereals, oilseeds, dairy products, meat, and sugar had the lowest point since December 2018. For example, palm oil production in Indonesia and Malaysia was affected by the pandemic labor shortage which resulted in restrictions on exporting palm oil from January 2022 through March of the same year [46]. Moreover, according to the FAO, the pandemic affected small farmers and fishermen, who had declined in their supplies and that declined their ability to cover their finances.

The COVID-19 pandemic affected the supply chain strongly and affected food security, especially for vulnerable communities, and they have less food storage to last during the pandemic. There are 10 countries with 103.3 million people suffering from a food crisis [47]. In countries like India, the demand increased for long shelf life vegetables such as onion and potato but decreased for short shelf life vegetables such as fruits and grapes. Developed countries were affected, but their dependence on technologies helped them subsidize the labor work, and developing countries were affected severely because of their independence from human labor. The fear of contracting the disease is strong on people's mental health as a secondary effect of the pandemic, and it was proven that mental disorders are higher in communities with food insecurity [48]. The restricted lockdown affected people's mental health which increased depression and that increased people's food consumption and panic buying [48]. Furthermore, vulnerable people to contract the virus are people facing chronic health conditions such as cardiovascular disease, diabetes, chronic respiratory disease, hypertension, and cancer.

This pandemic caused an international food emergency. In Europe, the pandemic increased the food demand by more than 50% with the lockdown [49]. In Europe, food supply stores were banned from exporting without warning to deal with the pandemic uncertainty [49]. In Europe, food consumption increased due to the
