The recent declarations of success against the COVID-19 virus are well known to HIV/AIDS activists. Behind these false allegations, there are many political interests. Governments evoke the "urgency of normal", but even if this can be reasoned via economic arguments, it neglects the most vulnerable populations who still develop severe cases of the disease, including many cases leading to deaths to this day (almost 2.000 confirmed deaths per day). It also leaves out entire nations where vaccination rates are insufficient—only 25% of people in low-income countries received one dose of a COVID-19 vaccine. Furthermore, it neglects the imminent rise of new and more infectious variants.
If early in the COVID-19 pandemic one of the political conflicts was between denialists on one side and public health experts, activists and progressive governments on the other, now experts and activists are alone on this side of the fight.
The HIV/AIDS pandemic has a lot to teach us about how we think of health and rights but also about geopolitics more broadly. It's a historic moment in global public health, and if we look at it carefully, we can find clues to how global health dynamics came to be what it is today. It can help us shed light on the failures to deal with COVID-19 in a just and equitable way and perhaps point towards new directions for resolving this lingering pandemic and being better prepared for the next one.
Listen to Dr Richard Parker, Emeritus Professor of Columbia University and a veteran HIV/AIDS activist dissect the "end of the pandemic" discourse.
