This upcoming Tuesday marks five years since the World Health Organization declared the COVID-19 outbreak a pandemic. That day, the Trump administration banned most travel from Europe. As borders closed and the world turned inward, many analysts predicted that the pandemic would upend everything from the financial order to the global balance of power.
For all the destruction it wrought, how much did COVID-19 reshape our world? What did we learn from the pandemic? And what still needs to change to avert similar crises in the future? This edition of Flash Points seeks to answer these questions and more by bringing together some of our sharpest essays on the impact of the pandemic and the global response.
Police manage freight truck drivers as the French border closes due to a new strain of COVID-19, seen at the entrance into the Port of Dover—where ferries depart to Calais, France, from the United Kingdom—on Dec. 21, 2020. Andrew Aitchison/In pictures via Getty Images
When the World Closed Its Doors
Five years after the COVID-19 pandemic began, the ease with which governments shut borders offers worrisome lessons, FP’s Edward Alden and Laurie Trautman write.
German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock, Italian Foreign Minister Luigi Di Maio, British Foreign Secretary Liz Truss, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken, and Canadian Foreign Minister Mélanie Joly pose for a photograph during the G-7 summit in Liverpool, England, on Dec. 12, 2021.ANTHONY DEVLIN/POOL/AFP via Getty Images
Turns Out COVID-19 Didn’t Reshape Geopolitics
A profound shock had few lasting effects, Daniel W. Drezner writes.
Syrians walk past a mural painted as part of a UNICEF and World Health Organization awareness campaign in the northeastern Hasakah province of Syria on Aug. 16, 2020. The mural displays tips on how to avoid COVID-19 after a spike in coronavirus infections in the area. DELIL SOULEIMAN/AFP via Getty Images
The Status Quo Won’t Save Us From the Next Pandemic
Disease threats are not just the health sector’s problem, Ellen Johnson Sirleaf and Helen Clark write.
Sang Lee (center) receives the Moderna COVID-19 vaccine at Kedren Community Health Center in Los Angeles on Feb. 16, 2021. Apu Gomes/AFP via Getty Images
How COVID-19 Vaccines Inhibited Real Change
FP’s Cameron Abadi and Adam Tooze discuss how the vaccines saved millions of lives but absolved countries from fixing core problems.
A person walks past a mask display at the World Health Expo in Wuhan, China, on April 7, 2023.Getty Images
Asia Should Take the Lead on Global Health
The region’s health care systems and innovations show how solidarity can shape well-being, K. Srinath Reddy and Priya Balasubramaniam write.