Taking Stock of Our World after the COVID-19 Emergency
On January 30, 2020, the World Health Organization (WHO) officially declared COVID-19 a global public health emergency. More than three years later (though it feels like three centuries in terms of the shocks and changes we’ve been through), on May 5, 2023, WHO declared the emergency to be over.
As of late May 2023, WHO had noted almost 7 million COVID-related deaths worldwide. More than 1 million of these were in the US.
In the 21st century, WHO has found only seven diseases serious enough to declare a “public health emergency of international concern.” Aside from COVID, there was the H1N1 influenza pandemic of 2009, Ebola in 2013 and 2019, polio in 2014, Zika fever in 2016, and monkeypox in 2022.
New policies move us into the unknown
Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, WHO director-general, noted that pandemic statistics trended lower over the 12-month period beginning in May 2022. In addition, thanks to vaccines and prior infections, overall population immunity has been rising. Dr. Tedros said his agency was following the guidance of its emergency committee, which had just met the evening before. He said he made the announcement with “great hope” for the future.
The United States government followed WHO, declaring the end of the public health emergency within its borders on May 11. However, at least over the near term, the federal government will continue to make free COVID vaccines available. Paxlovid and other COVID medications will remain free until supplies begin to run low. At that point, markets and insurance will determine the cost to individual patients.
For people who are uninsured, the Biden administration has pledged to continue to provide free vaccines and treatment through the end of 2024.
Insurance companies are now no longer mandated to cover the costs of at-home COVID testing. The CDC plans to maintain community health centers to offer free testing, and Medicaid recipients will have access through September 2024.
Loss, pain, and a host of everyday changes
So where does this leave us otherwise? It might be time to take stock of how the COVID emergency changed our lives forever.
Our world is changed because 7 million people are no longer in it. There will never be a way to measure the loss among those who loved them or a way for us to know how the people we have lost would have contributed to the world.
Our other losses are many, and they include our loss of a sense of safety as we move through the world, along with the further erosion of trust in institutions and our fellow human beings.
It’s also sobering to realize that an estimated 65 million people worldwide are living with long COVID. Chronic symptoms include “brain fog” and other disabling conditions. And we just don’t have enough information about how repeated infections may cause chronic health problems. Some studies point to more severe effects—including damage to major organs like the heart and kidneys—in some people from each subsequent infection.
Many of us still mask, at least on close-packed public transit. About one-third of all employees in the US who can work from home are doing so full-time. Work meetings that once would have been in-person have moved into cyberspace, even for teams in the same building. And psychologists tell us that it’s more common for people to feel a sense of generalized anxiety and hyper-vigilance in the post-COVID world. PTSD is, of course, a normal response to life-altering trauma.
The pandemic changed the way young people learn and how they develop socially and emotionally. Studies suggest that those who went through the trauma and stress of pandemic isolation without adequate loving support are more likely to show cognitive deficits and socio-emotional problems.
Hard-won resiliency and strength
But, as in every time of historic upheavals, there is opportunity amid the many crises. COVID boosted a wide range of technological innovations. The disease and its lockdowns helped accelerate political and social change, both the best (Black Lives Matter) and the worst (violent white supremacist movements).
Telemedicine is now routine. Online education at every level is booming. Some cities have purchased the hotels they used to provide homes to unhoused people during the pandemic and turned them into permanent housing. Robot and drone deliveries aren’t so scary anymore (and have proven quite efficient). We found new uses for virtual reality in training and education. And, in response to the pandemic, cloud computing cemented its place as the most nimble and responsive data-management tool for businesses of all sizes.
Meanwhile, a lot of the stigma previous generations pinned on direct cash assistance evaporated during the pandemic when the federal government sent emergency payments directly to individuals and families.
Before COVID, politicians on both sides of the aisle weren’t usually supportive of this option, preferring in-kind social benefits like food stamps. But there’s no denying that cash payments were a lifeline for millions of people in the shut-down economy. Studies subsequently showed that most people used these funds for exactly the essential purposes they were intended for, debunking the myth that benefit recipients wouldn’t use funds responsibly. Many economists credit this cash assistance with helping revive the economy much quicker than anticipated.
Make no mistake—we’re still in a pandemic. According to WHO’s Tedros, we now live with the risk of new COVID variants emerging at any moment, and we continue to document tragic numbers of deaths from the disease. Dropping the “public health emergency of international concern” designation just means we’ve moved from living in constant red alert to an era of managing COVID as one of numerous infectious diseases.
Maybe the biggest and most existential change we need to live with is learning that COVID is here to stay.