Pandemics disable people — the history lesson that policymakers ignore

Spinney, Laura

doi:10.1038/d41586-022-00414-x

COMMENT
16 February 2022

Pandemics disable people — the history lesson that policymakers ignore

Influenza, polio and more have shown that infections can change lives even decades later. Why the complacency over possible long-term effects of COVID-19?

Laura Spinney⁰

Laura Spinney
1. Laura Spinney is the author of Pale Rider: The Spanish Flu of 1918 and How it Changed the World. She writes about science, medicine and history from Paris.
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When Ashley Shew turned up for an appointment at a medical centre in spring 2020, a member of staff told her she could remove her mask because only people with pre-existing conditions were vulnerable to COVID-19. Shew was surprised. “A hard-of-hearing amputee battered by chemotherapy and more”, as she describes herself, she is a regular at the centre — the appointment that day concerned her prosthetic leg. Who, she wondered, did the staff member think counted as a person with pre-existing conditions?

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Nature 602, 383-385 (2022)

doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-022-00414-x

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