UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres will use his annual address to world leaders next week to push for a global ceasefire until the end of 2020 so countries can fight the coronavirus pandemic, but he said opportunities will be lost because presidents and prime ministers are not physically in New York.

“It is obvious that diplomacy depends a lot on human contact. And so we will have a loss because of that, especially for what is my first priority at the present moment [...] the implementation of the global ceasefire,” Guterres told Reuters.

“There are signals of hope, but we need to mobilise the whole of the international community to make this global ceasefire be a reality until the end of the year,” he added.

Guterres said a global ceasefire would boost efforts to contain Covid-19 and help create conditions for a coordinated, sustainable, inclusive recovery from the pandemic.