References
The pandemic has ended…

On 5 May, the Director General of the WHO (2023a) declared that: ‘COVID-19 is now an established and ongoing health issue, which no longer constitutes a public health emergency of international concern’. Nonetheless, the WHO Emergency Committee noted that the global risk assessment remains high despite evidence of reducing risk due to high population-level immunity. This is either due to prior infection, vaccination (13.3 billion doses of COVID-19 vaccines have been administered globally), or both, consistent virulence (no increased disease severity) of currently circulating SARS-CoV-2 Omicron sub-lineages and improved clinical case management. But COVID-19 will continue to impact upon the health of vulnerable individuals, with some developing the post-COVID-19 condition (‘Long COVID’) and the potential ongoing evolution of SARS-COV-2 in those with immunocompromised conditions.
Many will celebrate this declaration as a welcome milestone on the world's return to normality albeit most people, health systems and economies have been changed by the pandemic experience. It will be years before people can ‘forget’ the pandemic experience, not least because it impacted health and livelihoods (Suleman et al, 2021). The loss of social contact impacted the whole population in various ways, with younger generations and the vulnerable particularly experiencing its detrimental consequences (Suleman et al, 2021). Every day, we hear how interruptions to normal NHS services continue to impact upon cancer, diabetes and other disease outcomes (National Audit Office, 2022; House of Commons, 2023; Warner and Zaranko, 2023).
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