Flattening the curve: COVID-19 & grand challenges for global health, innovation, and economy

Abstract

One of the key issues the world grappled with during COVID-19 was the distributional implications of lockdowns globally. The shadow of lockdown policies continues when nations still try to emerge out of the pandemic. Heterogeneity herein over time, country and even within nations in policy making resulted in unintended consequences and debates between citizens, scientists, policy makers and civil society. Responses to COVID-19 meanwhile tried to balance a long run approach which involved the health sector, built on an innovation-oriented mindset and kept in mind the broader economic implications of policy decisions for the future.

Flattening the Curve is an effort to summarize these learnings from COVID-19, especially for future pandemics in this age of zoonotic diseases and the Anthropocene. Assembling scholars, scientists, innovators and entrepreneurs from across a variety of fields, this edited volume brings an interdisciplinary understanding to how the world can better respond socially to pandemics. It should be of immense value for students, scholars, policy makers and researchers in public policy, global health, economics, science and innovation policy, as well as regulation and business.