COVID-19

For two years, the world has been battling COVID-19 with masks, vaccines, and lockdowns. But countries have largely failed to channel their shared experiences into a blueprint for action.
Feb 4, 2022
For two years, the world has been battling COVID-19 with masks, vaccines, and lockdowns. But countries have largely failed to channel their shared experiences into a blueprint for action.
Feb 4, 2022
  • Public Health Threats and Pandemics
    Major Pandemics of the Modern Era
    For more than a century, countries have wrestled with how to improve international cooperation in the face of major outbreaks of infectious diseases. The COVID-19 pandemic, which brought the world to a near halt in 2020 and killed nearly seven million people, underscored the urgency.
  • Health
    What Is the FDA’s Role in Public Health?
    The U.S. health agency regulates the country’s foods and drugs, among other products. With the FDA’s role in drug development and nutrition policy and its COVID-19 pandemic response driving controversy, President Donald Trump is set to shake up its leadership.  
  • Public Health Threats and Pandemics
    CFR Fellows' Book Launch Series: When the World Closed Its Doors
    Play
    In When the World Closed Its Doors:The Covid-19 Tragedy and the Future of Borders, Edward Alden and Laurie Trautman tell the story of how nearly every country in the world shut its borders to respond to the pandemic threat. The book details the enormous human costs of the travel restrictions and argues that governments are becoming overly reliant on borders to address external threats from terrorism to drugs to migration. This wide-angle view of a singular shock to the international systems of travel and migration highlights why those living across borders need better protections and governments more robust guardrails. The CFR Fellows’ Book Launch series highlights new books by CFR fellows.