Towards Societies Living with COVID-19

The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic is undoubtedly the greatest challenge in peacetime facing the world for more than 100 years No country is untouched with more than 100 million confirmed cases and over 2 million deaths as of January 28, 2021 (1), and the actual number of infections is probably closer to one billion as few countries had sufficient testing capacity to identify all cases, particularly throughout early 2020 The effectiveness of national responses to the pandemic has been very unequal Whereas some countries, particularly in East and Southeast Asia and Oceania, have been able to bring the epidemic provisionally under control though with continuing outbreaks, much of the rest of the world is still struggling with expanding epidemics and an escalating death toll In addition to the physical and mental health impact and disruptions to health services, it is likely that the social and economic devastation will be with us for years to come The sobering reality is that we are only at the end of the beginning, not the beginning of the end While dealing with the acute stage of the pandemic, we need to start planning for the long-term and shift our thinking to societies living with COVID-19, even if we should benefit from the protection of vaccines The future trajectory of the pandemic will vary by country and depend on a combination of at least five factors: societal and public health responses, vaccine coverage, the duration of natural and vaccine-induced immunity, seasonality, and future mutations of the virus (2–3)