This Way Out: A Five Point Plan To End The Pandemic

Two years have passed since the World Health Organization declared COVID-19 a global pandemic. The officially reported global death toll has eclipsed six million. However, the WHO estimates that some 15 million have died directly or indirectly due to COVID-19 (excess mortality) while a study by the University of Washington places the overall death toll at 18 million.

In addition to the immediate death toll, the pandemic has triggered the first increase in extreme poverty in 25 years, reversed critical gains in the fight against HIV/AIDS and other preventable diseases, and ravaged global health systems. And yet, as the pandemic enters its third year, the world still lacks a coordinated game plan for ending the pandemic globally. Without a global strategy to ensure critical virus-fighting tools and technology are accessible everywhere, COVID could cost the world $14 trillion by the end of 2024.

ONE’s Five Point Plan to End the Pandemic, intends to help address this by providing a roadmap for world leaders to finally curb the COVID-19 crisis, support a truly global health and economic recovery, and strengthen global response protocol for future pandemics. The plan challenges world leaders to reframe our initial responses to global health emergencies and suggests a series of concerted, strategic actions along five key lines of effort:

• Meet global demand for vaccination coverage;
• Ensure all countries can access the tools necessary to ‘manage’ the virus;
• Resolve constraints that limit accessibility to vaccine and therapeutic technologies;
• Foster a truly global economic recovery; and
• Prepare for the next virus.

Our hope is that this plan provides a roadmap for achievable, sustainable progress against COVID-19 and an improvement in health outcomes and livelihoods across the globe.