The key to the Covid-powered challenges of 2022

There will be no return to the status quo ante after Covid-19, because the pandemic has changed too many things. The challenge for the coming year is to move forward by redesigning and reimagining the domains of work, politics, public health, and economic policy, writes Ngaire Woods

 Airport workers with a cargo of  vaccines donated through the UN-backed Covax initiative, on arrival in Antananarivo, Madagascar. In 2021, the world failed to distribute vaccines, treatments, and therapies for Covid-19 equitably or efficiently. 

After a year in which people longed to get back to “normal,” it is now clear that Covid-19 will not make this possible. The pandemic, now heading into its third year, has profoundly affected individuals, communities, countries, and international cooperation, creating four tough challenges for 2022. Rebuilding trust will be critical to confronting all of them.

The first challenge is that people’s relationship to work has changed. In some countries, lockdowns, the death of loved ones, and the general uncertainty of the pandemic have prompted or accelerated a rethink. In the United States, the number of workers quitting their jobs exceeded four million in each month from July to October 2021. Many young Chinese are joining the “lie flat” movement by opting out of long working hours, doing the bare minimum to get by, and striving for only what is absolutely essential for survival. The pandemic has deepened the divide between those who can work from home and the many who cannot.