Nearly two years into the Covid-19 pandemic, we conclude this series of The Turning Point essays in Public Health Post, by asking: what comes next?
Nearly 800,000 Americans, more than 5 million people worldwide, have died of Covid-19. More than 250 million people have been infected across the globe. The health effects of long- Covid remain unclear but will likely affect millions worldwide. It is clear that the health consequences of the economic and social upheaval due to Covid-19—mental illness, drug overdose, higher death rates from heart disease—will stay with us for years to come.
And, of course, none of this is quite over yet. As we write, the pandemic remains with us, with cases among the unvaccinated on the rise throughout much of the U.S., and the pandemic in various stages of ebb and flow in countries around the world. An unprecedented global effort to vaccinate as many people as possible has had successes, notably an historic rapid development of safe and effective vaccines delivered to billions of people in record time, and many failures, notably the patchy delivery of vaccines to low-income countries, and the uneven distribution of vaccines within high-income countries.
Now what?
Read more at The Turning Point.