Covid-19 Pandemic: pros and cons, Turned into endemic, and effect on education and economic loss

?PROS AND CONS OF THE COVID-19 PANDEMIC NOW CALLED AS ENDEMIC

?It is now informed that Europe and the United States have entered the endemic stage of the COVID-19 outbreak as the virus is widespread but is suggestively less deadly than it was in 2020 and is spurring only limited changes in public behavior.

Epidemiology is the branch of medical science that investigates all the factors that determine the presence or absence of diseases and disorders. Epidemiological research helps us to understand how many people a disease or disorder has if those numbers are changing, and how the disorder affects our society and our economy. The epidemiology of human communication is a rewarding and challenging field. In Epidemiology, an infection is said to be endemic in a population when that infection is constantly maintained at a baseline level in a geographic area without external inputs. For example, chickenpox is endemic in the United Kingdom, but malaria is not. Every year, there are a few cases of malaria reported in the UK, but these do not lead to a continual spread in the population due to the lack of a suitable vector. These endemic situations are appeared to continue through the summer and autumn, unless and until immunity-evading new variants emerged as Omicrons, BA,4, and BA, as immunity weakens, but the next stage remains highly uncertain the current and potential future use of boosters and therapeutics, and the moves in response strategies to the COVID-19 crisis across the world. An Immunity Index is a tool for understanding a community’s current level of risk from the disease.

The past few months?have seen many parts of the world, including Europe and North America, continue their journey toward endemic COVID-19. While the BA.5 subvariant has formed a rise in the number of cases in many places the burden of severe disease remains low in Europe and is only moderately higher in the United States, due to the lower average severity of Omicron subvariants and high levels of partial immunity.?Countries such as Australia and New Zealand have decreased their previously strong focus on controlling the viral spread and are now transitioning to strategies for managing the endemic disease. They have seen continued success, recording higher case counts but few deaths. The experience of these countries, with total excess mortality from the pandemic far lower than it is in other parts of the world and only a limited need for ongoing restrictions, can make a case that their response to the COVID-19 pandemic has been among the most effective in the world.

As of mid-July 2022, mainland China is contributing to the only large country pursuing a zero-COVID-19 strategy.?That method has helped to low fatality caused by COVID-19. Despite, the relatively low levels of immunity among the population, including the elderly, make the endgame for this approach less clear than it is for countries that have shifted away from a zero-COVID-19 strategy. In the meantime, the current approach appears to have had substantial and mostly negative effects on both the Chinese and the global economies. Looking ahead, the outlook for most regions, including Europe and North America, remains relatively favorable for the coming months, with levels of severe disease at or below recent levels. The winter of 2022–23 may see a more substantial upward trend in the Northern Hemisphere, but this is unlikely to be as severe as the December 2021–February 2022 wave. Two cautions are vital. First, the term “relatively favorable” needs qualification. While many people in the United States are feeling comfortable living alongside COVID-19, the average number of daily deaths still runs at two to four times the long-term average for influenza, and it is higher on a seasonally adjusted basis.?Second, a new, immunity-evading variant could upend this relatively optimistic story at any time. Delta-cron (Omicron’s twin) and Milder-cron scenarios remain a reasonable summary of the range of possibilities for the impact of future variants. Subvariants of Omicron, especially BA.5, have defied the world with ever more transmissible versions of the virus. Since, they have not deeply changed the dynamics of the pandemic, because there has not been a step change decline in immunity, as seen during the winter when Omicron first emerged. For clarity, some indicative mark that BA.4 and BA.5 can elude immunity is emerging. However, scientists view these variants as simply more transmissible than Omicron. The vaccines now in wide distribution still limit the incidence of severe disease.

VACCINES, THERAPEUTICS, AND TESTS

Although advances in noticing and treating COVID-19 lead the news less frequently than they did a year ago, important developments continue to emerge. Global Public-health authorities are considering short- and medium-term strategies for the timing and rollout of supporter shots. Many are already endorsing fourth doses for those at highest risk of severe disease, considering the latest studies highlighting the additional benefit provided. Some are discussing a strategy that would combine annual flu and COVID-19 enhancers in the winter.

However, the future uptake of boosters is not fully understood. In the United States, only about half of those who received the initial course of COVID-19 vaccines have received the first booster. The clarity It is not yet clear whether the public interest in boosters will continue to decline, or demand will in time match the historical uptake of flu vaccines (around 50 percent of adults). Without continued immunization, population immunity to current variants, including Omicron, will lessen over time. But Omicron-specific boosters (especially to address BA.4 and BA.5) could strongly emerge this winter and significantly enhance the efficacy of vaccines against the predominant strain. The recent approval of COVID-19 vaccines for children even having six months is also an important step. The low rate of severe COVID-19 in this age group means that the impact on pediatric mortality will be small. But there is hope that vaccinating young children will increase overall population immunity.

Paxlovid and other COVID-19 therapeutics are now widely available in high-income countries. In the United States, supply is well ahead of demand.?Increasing the uptake of effective therapeutics is an important step for governments as they continue the transition toward managing endemic COVID-19. These therapeutics, including both small-molecule and antibody treatments, have helped unsharpened the incidence of severe disease in places where they are widely available. But the same lacks in access that throw the distribution of vaccines in low-income countries are prominent again with therapeutics: doses sit unused in high-income countries while other parts of the world lack access. Testing for COVID-19 has progressively loosened to a home-based model. Since so few results from home tests are reported, it has been difficult to estimate the current wave’s true magnitude in the United States. The official statistics, which already tend to underestimate the number of cases, may become even less sensitive to the true dimensions of viral transmission. Public-health authorities may therefore need to look at a wider range of indicators to support their planning and disease management efforts. One such indicator may be consumer behavior. Since home tests became more widely available, in late 2021, consumer purchases of them have risen in line with waves of COVID-19 cases, prefiguring rises in deaths attributable to the disease. It is very earlier to state if rising numbers of test purchases reflect consumers’ awareness of the symptomatic disease, their knowledge of the spread of cases in the community, or other factors. But it seems likely that purchases of tests are an indicator and could provide some advance warning of future waves of the disease. Over the past couple of months, the number of tests bought from one online retailer has been rising, which may buttress the imprint that the United States is entering a period of sustained case growth.

Assessing community risk

The risk that COVID-19 attitudes to a community at any point in time is a function of the immunity of its members. Immunity protects individuals and reduces risk for people in the community around them by reducing rates of onward transmission. It is gained through vaccination (primary series and boosters), infection with SARS-CoV-2, or both (hybrid immunity). It is lost both gradually, with the passage of time, and suddenly, when a new variant that escapes the immunity afforded by vaccination or previous infection becomes dominant. ?(As the advent of Omicron in late 2021). A community’s level of immunity is a precarious balance, constantly shifting as individuals gain and lose immunity.

Although everyone’s level of immunity cannot be measured in real-time, we can base estimates of the level of community risk on what is known about vaccination rates and previous infections. Protection against?any?infection (including asymptomatic disease) is likely to be lower and protection against severe disease is likely to be higher. Ranges reflect the uncertainty around immunity levels and describe population averages. They are not intended to be predictive for any individual. Two communities might have the same score but different combinations of vaccination and prior infection. They might also have diverse views for the next few months if their collective immunities are waning rapidly or slowly. The immunity against symptomatic disease (not any disease) is what we try to assess; we do not estimate a community’s brink for herd immunity, as that would be driven by both symptomatic and asymptomatic infections.

The emergence of Omicron during the winter of 2021–22 is visible as a sharp drop in immunity in multiple countries, as existing immunity was abruptly less effective against the new variant. The proportion of unvaccinated people with past infections in a country is roughly correlated with its overall COVID-19 mortality since unvaccinated but infected people have been at the greatest risk of bad results. Even countries, such as Italy and the United Kingdom, with strong vaccination track records, may be starting to lose immunity as the pace of booster uptake drops over the summer (although most countries are prioritizing boosters for the highest risk populations).

As Australia transitions its COVID-19 strategy, it has rapidly gained immunity over the past year through a blend of vaccination and infections. Vaccination remains an essential element in building immunity. Some new studies suggest that infection converses more immunity and protection against severe disease than does vaccination alone.?Consequently, some countries with strong vaccination records may now have lower immunity than others, such as the United States, that have experienced many cases during recent Omicron waves and for which much of the population was last immunized about six months ago. Even countries, such as the United States, continue to experience many new COVID-19 cases because of the extremely high transmissibility of current SARS-CoV-2 variants. US mortality for COVID-19 is still higher than the historical average for flu but has fallen by 85 to 90 percent since its early 2021 peak. A successful season booster campaign in Northern Hemisphere countries will be important to increasing immunity levels before winter comes. ?A country in which the elderly is awesomely immune will have much better outcomes than will a similar country where the same level of overall immunity is concentrated in the young. Immunity can only partly forecast the burden of disease at any point in time. Other important drivers of disease trends include the variant mix, the season, and behavior (such as masking, compliance with isolation and quarantines, and working from home).

After the short, sharp shock of Omicron, the pandemic phase of COVID-19 looks to be ending for most locations, unless a significant and severe new variant emerges. The experience learned from Omicron, the prospects for the rest of 2022, and presents three potential criteria for defining COVID-19 as endemic. The Omicron variant?of COVID-19 SARS-CoV-2 variant was coined by WHO on November 26, 2021, it has moved at a light pace. ?Wide frequency of the worst of the Omicron wave has passed leading some places to slacken public-health events to a degree not seen in almost two years. Appositively, some locations, such as Hong Kong,?are seeing their worst peak yet and continuing to constrict restrictions. The Omicron is more infectious than any past variant and eludes the immunity provided by both prior infection and imperfect vaccination. These factors, combined with limited behavior change from pandemic-weary people and the twin accelerants of transmission, holiday travel, and gatherings meant that Omicron moved through the population at a rapid pace. Accelerants are substances that can bond, mix or disturb another substance and cause an increase in the speed of a natural, or artificial chemical process. Fortunately, the early evidence that Omicron is, on average, less severe than Delta also proved right.?The even more infectious BA.2 sub-variant of Omicron may have worsened the wave but has not substantially changed this narrative to date.

?LESSON LEARNT FROM PAST EXPERIENCE

Many lessons were learned from the Omicron wave about the effectiveness of various societal responses. First, up-to-date vaccination status, including a recent booster, proved to be especially important in protecting against Omicron. Countries where a significant portion of those at risk had received three doses of vaccine, including at least one dose of mRNA vaccine, saw hospitalizations substantially decouple from cases.?This meant that many European countries had more cases but fewer hospitalizations during this wave than prior ones. Oppositely, places with lower latest vaccine coverage, including parts of the United States, set all-time records for hospitalization and deaths. As in previous waves, lower-income countries and those with younger populations were somewhat protected,?even though inequalities in global vaccine access have meant that few there have received three doses, and most have not gotten even a single dose. Second, the link between cases and behavioral tunings is largely broken. Data shows that more people have concluded that the health risks of COVID-19 are not significant enough for them to change their behavior, either because of their vaccination status, their youth, or a desire to move on from the pandemic.?Third, and consistent with this trend, some governments have concluded that the total societal costs of lockdowns, limits on business, or masking outweigh the benefits at this phase of the pandemic. Other governments, however, are sustaining or firming public-health policies, including vaccine mandates.?Many workplaces remain relatively cautious in their policies,?but public-health responses to Omicron have typically been less forceful than those of prior waves with similar disease burdens.

Prospects for the rest of the year 2022 rest on the questions of whether and when future variants will emerge. If Omicron remains the dominant variant, there is the reason for relative optimism. ?Omicron-related hospitalizations are likely to continue to decline in the United States and remain at relatively low levels through the spring and summer. ?We might then expect to see a seasonality-driven wave of disease next fall and winter, but hospitalizations would likely peak well below the level of the wave we just skilled.

A scenario, in which Omicron remains the leading variant, signifies a continuation of the shift toward?managing COVID-19 as an endemic disease?that is already underway in many locations. With Omicron as the dominant variant, the pandemic phase will feel like it is over for more and more people, though certainly not all. BAs ever, diverse parts of the world will experience the coming phase differently. Countries with high rates of current immunity and widespread booster uptake will be better protected. Age demographics will continue to be an important risk driver. The dynamics of seasonality may cause variances between the northern and southern hemispheres. And government policy still matters—in particular, the few remaining countries with zero-COVID-19 strategies may also experience the coming months differently as they choose whether to continue or relax their border policies.

NEW VARIANTS: THE BIG UNKNOWN

Overall, the six-month in many countries is brighter than ever in the past two years. But several fears could temper the optimism, beginning with the duration of immunity. Evidence indicates that both natural and vaccine-induced immunity wanes over time, particularly against infection.?Before understandings know the full extent of waning immunity for Omicron, new evidence indicates that those who have received three doses of vaccine may benefit from medium-term protection.?At the same time, booster uptake has been meaningly lower than first- and second-dose coverage in many countries. For example, while 215 million Americans are fully vaccinated, only 93 million have also received a booster dose.?So, as we consider future waves, two critical questions remain about the duration of protection: The next wave of medical advances will also prompt questions. Pfizer and Moderna have indicated that modified vaccines targeted against Omicron could be available in the coming months,?but we do not yet know their efficacy, duration of protection, or the policies that will be set around fourth doses. Nor is it clear yet what the approval standards might be for multi-valent vaccines. Another side, there is hope that wider use of the oral therapeutics paxlovid and molnupiravir will further lessen several cases,?but the real-world impact of their use at scale is not yet known, and supplies of paxlovid are still scaling.

These doubts are important, they do not necessarily change the story of a transition toward endemicity under Omicron. The main risk to that transition is a significantly different new variant that replaces Omicron as the dominant strain. ?SARS-CoV-2 will continue to mutate under all scenarios, but most mutations do not lead to stable new forms of the virus with an evolutionary advantage. Alpha, Delta, and Omicron have met this standard, and have changed the path of the pandemic. Beta and Gamma have also affected the path, but to a lesser degree; their evolutionary advantage was not great enough to become globally dominant. Omicron is already among the most infectious human viruses known to science. While even greater infectiousness (such as the sub-variant BA.2 has exhibited) is possible, to become dominant a new variant would likely need to also evade prior immunity partially or fully, including that provided by Omicron infection. If such a variant emerged, its average clinical severity would then be critical. It lays out three example scenarios for the potential features and trajectory of the pandemic under a new dominant variant. This is not a complete list of possible future variants but some potential options. The new dominant variant will receive a Greek-letter name, but until then we have created more descriptive names for our scenarios. Under the “Omicron’s twin” scenario, a variant that evaded prior immunity but was otherwise like Omicron in transmissibility and severity of disease might cause a wave of disease broadly like the one we have recently experienced, though perhaps slightly worse if the public response to it is even more muted and if vaccine-conferred immunity has waned. A worse case might be “Delta-corn”, a variant that to is understood evades prior immunity and combines the infectiousness of Omicron with the average severity of Delta. This might occur if vaccines proved less effective in preventing severe disease and could lead to the worst wave yet for many locations. The “Milder-cron” scenario would continue the trend toward less severe disease. Countries might then experience a smaller version of the recent Omicron wave, which might be managed like the way societies manage flu on an ongoing basis.

What is tougher to assess is when a new variant of SARS-CoV-2 will emerge. It could be a day after we publish this update, or six months, or years from now. The extraordinary progress we have already seen in just over two years four strains in succession has become globally leading makes it dangerous to plan on a “no new variant” scenario. But it is possible that evolution will not produce epidemiologically significant new variants. The risk of new variants emerging is related to the number of cases in the world since each infected individual represents a new opportunity for viral evolution. Some have suggested that populations, such as those who are having an impaired immune system due to HIV or other causes, are excessively at risk of incubating new variants.?Others have posited a possible zoonotic origin of Omicron. A zoonosis or zoonotic disease is an infectious disease of humans caused by a pathogen that has jumped from an animal to a human. As scientific understanding of these potential trials develops and genomic scrutiny networks continue to expand, societies may get better at reducing the risk of variant emergence. For now, we are just a remain spectators as the virus evolves.

PANDEMIC TO ENDEMIC: WHERE DOES ONE END AND THE OTHER BEGIN?

Several latent definitions of the transition from pandemic to endemic phase are possible.?COVID-19 can be defined as endemic when it exists at a predictable level that does not require society-defining intrusions.?While we all wish that level could be zero, removing the disease is not feasible for any country with open borders. Previous editions of this article invoked a comparison of the COVID-19 burden to that of other diseases such as flu. Just as the risk of flu is considered normal, so too might the risk of COVID-19. Moreover, what is measured as acceptable by society will differ across countries. Countries currently reopening during Omicron wave slumps are doing so amid quite different experiences of COVID-19 burden. For example, the COVID-19 death rate per capita in the past month for the United States is 50 percent higher than Argentina’s and the real?threshold for endemicity would come when variations in disease burden cause only minimal change in individuals' economic and social behavior. This is mediated by individual risk factors and their risk appetite. Finally, an?economic?threshold for endemic covid-19 will come when epidemiology markedly dissociates from economic activity and secondary economic effects are largely resolved. This economic definition is related to the individual behavior definition but may take longer to reach because those secondary effects, including supply chain imbalances, labor market disruptions, and global asymmetries affecting travel and trade, may linger.

Until a new variant emerges, and under some scenarios even once it does, the United States and Europe will likely continue to move toward these definitions of endemicity. As that happens, countries across Europe are rolling back the last public-health restrictions.?England plans to end the isolation requirement for those testing positive and is ending free asymptomatic testing.?The US CDC recently announced a change in its masking guidelines that serves to significantly reduce the number of areas where masking is suggested.?Airline passenger volumes in the United States are much closer to pre-pandemic levels than they were a year ago and schools steered the recent wave with less disruption than was caused by previous waves of disease.

Endemic COVID-19 does not mean that the disease poses no risk. Globally, we should aim for an?always-on response system?that can scale quickly. Every society must do four things to manage COVID-19 effectively during the endemic phase: Choose a holistic set of health, economic, and social markets that they are managing for, Monitor and track progress against them in ways that allow for targeted response escalation when needed, Limit disease through effective use of vaccines, therapeutics, and other preventive measures, and slow transmission through testing and environmental/workplace modifications. A new variant may yet cause another chapter in the COVID-19 pandemic and societies must be prepared to respond when that happens. But for now, the pandemic phase looks to be ending.

WHEN THE CORONAVIRUS PANDEMIC ENDS

Our perspectives on when the coronavirus pandemic will end to reflect the latest information on vaccine rollout, variants of concern, and disease progression. Among high-income countries, cases caused by the Delta variant reversed the transition toward normalcy first in the United Kingdom, during June and July of 2021, and subsequently in the United States and elsewhere. The Delta variant has effectively moved overall herd immunity out of reach in most countries for the time being. The United Kingdom’s experience yet advocates that once a country has battered a wave of Delta-driven cases, it may be able to resume the transition toward normalcy. Beyond that, a more realistic epidemiological endpoint might arrive not when herd immunity is achieved but when COVID-19?can be managed as an endemic disease. The biggest overall risk would likely then be the emergence of a significant new variant.

Since the March installment?in this series, many countries, including the United States, Canada, and those in Western Europe, experienced a measure of relief from the COVID-19 pandemic?when some locales boarded on the second-quarter transition toward normalcy. This progress was enabled by rapid vaccine rollout, with most Western European countries and Canada overcoming their slower starts during the first quarter of 2021 and passing the United States in the share of the population that is fully immunized.?However, even that share has been too small for them to achieve herd immunity, because of the emergence of the more transmissible and more lethal Delta variant?and the determination of vaccine indecision.

?UNDERSTANDING THE DELTA VARIANT

Among high-income countries, cases caused by the Delta variant reversed the transition toward normalcy first in the United Kingdom, where a summertime surge of cases led authorities to delay lifting public-health restrictions, and more recently in the United States and elsewhere. The Delta variant increases the short-term burden of disease, causing more cases, hospitalizations, and deaths. Delta’s high transmissibility also makes herd immunity harder to achieve: a larger fraction of a given population must be immune to keep Delta from spreading within that population. The Delta variant has effectively moved herd immunity out of reach in most countries for now,?although some regions may come close to it.

While the vaccines used in Western countries remain highly effective at preventing severe diseases due to COVID-19, recent data from Israel, the United Kingdom, and the United States have raised new questions about the ability of these vaccines to prevent infection from the Delta variant.?Serial blood tests suggest that immunity may wane relatively quickly. This has prompted some high-income countries to start offering booster doses to high-risk populations or planning for their rollout.?Data from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention also suggest that vaccinated people who become infected with the Delta variant may transmit it efficiently. These events and findings have raised new questions about when the pandemic will end. The United Kingdom’s experience yet suggests that once a country has weathered a Delta-driven wave of cases, it may be able to relax public-health measures and resume the transition toward normalcy.?Beyond that, a more realistic epidemiological endpoint might arrive not when herd immunity is achieved but when countries are able to control the burden of COVID-19 enough that it can be managed as an endemic disease. The biggest risk to a country’s ability to do this would likely then be the emergence of a new variant that is more transmissible, more liable to cause hospitalizations and deaths, or more capable of infecting people who have been vaccinated. Raising vaccination rates will be essential to achieving a transition toward normalcy. Vaccine hesitancy, however, has proven to be a persistent challenge, both in preventing the spread of the Delta variant and to reaching herd immunity. The US FDA has now fully approved Pfizer’s COVID-19 vaccine, and other full approvals may follow soon, which could help increase vaccination rates. Vaccines are also likely to be made available to children in the coming months, making it possible to protect a group that comprises a significant share of the population in some countries. Endemic COVID-19 may be a more realistic endpoint than herd immunity.

?One step toward this terminus could be shifting the focus of public-health efforts from managing case counts to managing severe illnesses and deaths. Singapore’s government has announced that it will make this shift, and more countries may follow its lead. Comparing the burden of COVID-19 with that of other diseases, such as influenza, to understand when endemicity might occur. In the United States, COVID-19 hospitalization and mortality rates in June and July were nearing the ten-year average rates for influenza but have since risen. Now, the burden of disease caused by COVID-19 in vaccinated people in the United States is like or lower than the average burden of influenza over the last decade, while the risks from COVID-19 to unvaccinated people are significantly higher. This comparison should be qualified, insofar as the burden of COVID-19 is dynamic, currently increasing, and uneven geographically. It nevertheless helps illustrate the relative threat posed by the two diseases. Countries experiencing a Delta-driven wave of cases may be more likely to begin managing COVID-19 as an endemic disease after cases go into decline.?The United Kingdom appears to be making this shift now. For the United States and the European Union, scenario analysis suggests that the shift may begin in the fourth quarter of 2021 and continue into early 2022. As it progresses, countries would likely achieve high levels of protection against hospitalization and death because of further vaccination efforts and natural immunity from prior infection. In addition, boosters, full approval of vaccines, authorization of vaccines for children, and a continuation of the trend toward employer and government mandates and incentives for vaccination are all likely to increase immunity. Although the resulting level of population immunity may not be high enough to achieve herd protection, it would still protect a substantial portion of the population. Most serious cases of COVID-19 would occur in unvaccinated people. Flare-ups and localized epidemics would happen while COVID-19 is managed as an endemic disease, but scenario modeling suggests that these may have less of an effect on the whole of society than the waves seen to date. Booster vaccinations will be important in maintaining immunity levels over time.?A new variant that substantially evades existing immunity would remain the biggest overall risk.

Countries have varying prospects for reaching the end of the pandemic. Here, we offer a broader geographic view, comparing the current state in countries around the world. Countries fall into three general groups :

1. High-vaccination countries.?These countries, primarily in North America and Western Europe, are the ones discussed above.

2. Case controllers.?This group includes countries such as Singapore that have been most successful in limiting mortality associated with COVID-19 to date.?They have typically maintained tight border restrictions and a strong public-health response to imported cases. Their residents have mostly enjoyed long periods of relative normalcy without public-health restrictions, aside from limits on international travel. Some countries in this group, such as Australia, have recently faced a Delta-driven surge in cases, but in absolute terms, the burden of disease remains low relative to other countries. Unless these countries choose to maintain their border restrictions (such as hotel-based quarantine) indefinitely, they might accept the risk of endemic COVID-19 after governments fix that enough portion of the population is vaccinated. The pace of vaccine rollout varies among the countries, but in many cases reopening of borders may not begin until 2022, dependent in part on public-health outcomes for countries in other groups. The shift from a zero-COVID-19 goal to an endemic, low-burden goal may be challenging for some countries.

3. At-risk countries.?Mainly comprising most lower-income and many middle-income countries, this is a group of nations that have not yet gained access to enough vaccine doses to cover a large portion of their populations. Estimates of their overall immunity remain low enough that there is still a risk of significant waves of disease. Recent projections suggest that it is likely to take until late 2022 or early 2023 for these countries to achieve high vaccine coverage. The possible time frame for them to manage COVID-19 as an endemic disease is less clear.

Globally and nationally, the epidemiological and public-health situation remains dynamic, and the prospects for each country group are subject to uncertainty. Factors that could influence actual outcomes include the potential for new variants to emerge, further evidence of waning natural and vaccine-mediated immunity over time, and challenges with rolling out vaccine boosters quickly enough to maintain immunity further challenges with vaccine manufacturing or global rollout changes in the ways that countries define an acceptable burden of disease. In countries where vaccination rates remain low, the prospects for ending the pandemic remain largely tied to the availability and administration of additional doses. Expanding the international vaccine rollout remains essential to achieving a post-pandemic sense of normalcy worldwide. The fall in COVID-19 cases?across much of the world over the past ten weeks signals a new dawn in the fight against the disease. Vaccines are proving effective and rapidly scaling, bending the curve in many geographies. This is fragile dawn, however, with transmission and deaths still high, unequal access to vaccines, and variants of concern threatening to undo progress to date. The trajectory of UK and US cases has enabled the beginnings of a transition toward normalcy, the first and more important of the pandemic’s two endpoints.?We are more confident in this timeline for the United Kingdom than for the United States, given that the first has already experienced a wave driven by a more infectious variant, whereas the latter could still face one. Parts of the European Union have recently faced setbacks: fewer doses in arms than in the United Kingdom or United States, a new wave of cases, and new lockdowns. Herd immunity, the second endpoint, is most likely in the third quarter for the United Kingdom and the United States and in the fourth quarter for the European Union, with the difference driven by a more limited vaccine availability in the European Union. However, the risks to these timelines are real herd immunity may not be achieved by the end of the year if vaccine hesitancy is high, if countries experience disruptions in vaccine supply, or if a variant that renders existing vaccines less effective spreads widely. And herd immunity may look different in different parts of the world, ranging from strong nationwide or regional protection to temporary or wavering immunity to some countries not reaching herd immunity over the medium term.

The past month or two have seen these important developments: ??We have growing evidence that vaccines are effective, as real-world data from Israel and the United Kingdom validate the clinical-trial results by showing a sharp reduction in hospitalizations and deaths.?Emerging evidence also indicates that vaccines likely reduce transmission considerably, although not to the same degree that they prevent severe disease, The vaccine rollout is improving.?Massive inoculation programs have accelerated, especially in the United Kingdom. As of March 15, the United Kingdom has administered 39 doses per 100 people in the total population; the corresponding figures for the United States and the European Union are 33 and 12 per 100, respectively.?Just as important: sentiment about vaccine adoption is improving. More vaccines are coming.?Johnson & Johnson’s one-shot vaccine appears to be highly effective against severe COVID-19 and received Emergency Use Authorization in the United States on February 27.?Novavax’s vaccine is now in Phase III trials; preliminary results suggest it was highly effective in the United Kingdom but less so in South Africa.?All that makes it increasingly clear that the United Kingdom and the United States will have enough doses to vaccinate all adults by the end of the second quarter, and Europe should achieve the same milestone by the end of the third quarter, assuming no major vaccines are withdrawn. Further, vaccine trials on children aged 12 and up are well underway, and new trials on babies and children six months and older raise the possibility of pediatric vaccination, which would add to the population that could potentially contribute to herd immunity. Therapeutics are poised to make more of a difference.?A new wave of COVID-19 therapeutics, including those from Eli Lilly,?Merck–Ridgeback,?and Vir Biotechnology,?have produced positive data or received Emergency Use Authorization. The emerging data from these treatments suggest they have the potential to materially reduce hospitalizations and deaths for cases that do occur, accelerating a transition toward normalcy. New cases and deaths are lower but still high.?New cases, hospitalizations, and deaths have dropped intensely by 79 percent and 89 percent, respectively, in the United States and the United Kingdom from the January peak, as of March 15. This trajectory has amplified discussions of a transition toward normalcy in both countries. The bend in the curve is fragile, however. much of the decline in Europe has followed strict lockdowns; but lockdowns and other nonpharmaceutical interventions are still confoundingly difficult to get right, and even now, multiple European countries are experiencing upward case trends. And US deaths are still averaging 1,000 per day, many times higher than average daily flu deaths. It is increasingly clear that more infectious variants of concern?may drive a new wave of cases in the coming months.?The United Kingdom is in a relatively favorable position; cases are declining despite the high prevalence of the B.1.1.7 variant, suggesting that the country has a demonstrable ability to control the spread of more infectious variants. In contrast, the United States and parts of the European Union appear to have an increased prevalence of B.1.1.7.?The potential for a variant-driven wave of US cases and ongoing spread in Europe in the coming months is real. Variants may also reduce vaccine efficacy or enable reinfection.?Data from the AstraZeneca vaccine trial in South Africa highlight the potential for variants such as B.1.351 and P.1 to reduce the efficacy of vaccines.?Other vaccine data, including those from Novavax and Johnson & Johnson, show a more modest reduction in efficacy, especially against severe diseases caused by these variants. There is also early evidence of mutations arising independently in the United States that may reduce the efficacy of vaccines.?These variants also appear to be more infectious than the original wild-type strain. These initial findings are based on exceedingly small sample sizes and may change as more information becomes available; we still do not know the impact of vaccines against severe diseases from these strains. But if these results hold up, the spread of strains against which existing vaccines are substantially less effective would be a significant risk to lives and could delay the end of the pandemic.

The net impact of all these developments is good. The data continue to indicate, as stated in our earlier perspectives, that a significant transition toward UK and US normalcy will occur in the second quarter of 2021, although the potential for a variant-driven wave in the United States is real and would blunt the transition. Potential herd-immunity timelines are bifurcating because of growth in variants that may reduce vaccine efficacy. If the variants turn out to be a minor factor (they only reduce vaccine efficacy modestly, or they do not spread widely), then herd immunity in the second half of the year is likely for both countries—and is more likely in the third quarter than the fourth. However, if the impact of these variants is significant, we could see timelines significantly prolonging into late 2021 or beyond. Given that sufficient vaccine doses are available to vaccinate the highest-risk populations in the coming months, we expect to see the EU transition to normalcy during the second quarter of the year, although the start of this transition may be delayed until late in the quarter by a new wave of cases in some countries. A key difference for the European Union, as compared with the United Kingdom and the United States: herd immunity is more likely in the fourth quarter than in the third quarter, given the likely timeline of vaccine delivery. The European Union, the United Kingdom, and the United States have had broadly similar COVID-19 experiences, other parts of the world look quite different. Countries like New Zealand have avoided significant COVID-19-associated mortality but appear to be further from herd immunity because, so few New Zealanders have infection-driven immunity to SARS-CoV-2. On the other hand, if vaccine uptake is fast, New Zealand might achieve longer-lasting vaccine-based herd immunity. A second factor is a seasonality: the timing of seasonality-driven changes will be different in tropical locations and the Southern Hemisphere. A third is demographics: while the younger populations of many lower-income countries have led to lower COVID-19-associated mortality, they also make it harder for adult-only vaccination programs to drive herd immunity. And perhaps most importantly for timelines, access to vaccines is unequal. While COVAX and other access initiatives are working to close the gap, many low-income countries may not receive enough doses to vaccinate all adults until well into 2022.?The world is on pace to manufacture enough?doses for 80 percent of the global population—or close to 100 percent of the adult population—by the end of 2021, but the distribution of these doses may continue to be asymmetric.

The next few years are likely to see a combination of some or all these options around the world. Given the likely timing of herd immunity in various geographies and the uncertain duration of protection from vaccines (both duration of immune response and efficacy versus new variants), it is likely that some measures such as booster vaccines are likely to be required indefinitely. Herd immunity is not the same as eradication. SARS-CoV-2 will continue to exist. Even when a country reaches herd immunity, ongoing surveillance, booster vaccines, and potentially other measures may be needed. A year ago, the world was coming to terms with a long, difficult journey ahead. Twelve months later, the end of the pandemic is in sight for some parts of the world. It is much too soon to declare victory, however. We hope that our perspectives prove useful to leaders as they set policy and strategy; we will continue to update the series. The pandemic’s end is more certain and may be a little nearer. Both the epidemiological and normalcy ends to the COVID-19 pandemic are important. The transition to the next normal will mark an important social and economic milestone, and herd immunity will be a more definitive end to the pandemic. In the United States, while the transition to normal might be completed sooner, the epidemiological endpoint looks most likely to be reached soon.

HOW COVID-19 CAUSED A GLOBAL LEARNING CRISIS

The pandemic has taken a substantial toll on students’ academic progress as well as on their mental health. School systems can respond across multiple horizons to help students get back on track. The length of school closures varied widely across the world. School buildings in middle-income Latin America and South Asia were fully or partially closed the longest—for 75 weeks or more. Those in high-income Europe and Central Asia were fully or partially closed for less time (30 weeks on average), as were those in low-income sub-Saharan Africa (34 weeks on average). Access to quality remote and hybrid learning also varied both across and within countries. In Tanzania, while school buildings were closed, children in just 6 percent of households listened to radio lessons, 5 percent accessed TV lessons, and fewer than 1 percent participated in online learning. Furthermore, pandemic-related learning delays stack up on top of historical learning inequities. The World Bank estimates that while students in high-income countries gained an average of 50 harmonized learning outcomes (HLO) points a year pre-pandemic, students in low-income countries were gaining just 20, leaving those students several years behind. On average, students globally are eight months behind where they would have been absent the pandemic, but the impact varies widely, with countries falling into three archetypes: High-performing systems, with relatively high levels of pre-COVID-19 performance, where students may be about one to five months behind due to the pandemic (for example, North America and Europe, where students are, on average, four months behind). Low-income pre-pandemic-challenged systems, with very low levels of pre-COVID-19 learning, where students may be about three to eight months behind due to the pandemic (for example, in sub-Saharan Africa, where students are on average six months behind).Pandemic-affected middle-income systems, with moderate levels of pre-COVID-19 learning, where students may be nine to 15 months behind (for example, in Latin America and South Asia, where students are, on average, 12 months. behind). The pandemic also increased inequalities within systems. For example, it widened gaps between majority Black and majority White schools in the United States and increased preexisting urban-rural divides in Ethiopia. Beyond learning, the pandemic has had broader social and emotional impacts on students globally—with rising mental-health concerns, reports of violence against children, rising obesity, increases in teenage pregnancy, and rising levels of chronic absenteeism and dropouts. Lower levels of learning translate into lower future earnings potential for students and lower economic productivity for nations. By 2040, the economic impact of pandemic-related learning delays could lead to annual losses of $1.6 trillion worldwide, or 0.9 percent of the total global GDP. School systems can respond across multiple horizons, tailoring their strategies based upon preexisting educational performance, the depth and breadth of learning delays, and system capacity and resources: Safely reopen schools for in-person learning while ensuring resilience for future disruptions Reenrollment: Encourage students, families, and teachers to reengage with learning in effective learning environments. ?Support students as they recover from the academic and social-emotional impacts of the pandemic, starting with an understanding of each student’s needs. Recommit to quality education for every child, doubling down on the fundamentals of educational excellence and innovating to adapt.?In some parts of the world,?students, parents, and teachers may be experiencing a novel feeling: cautious optimism. After two years of disruptions from COVID-19, the overnight shift to online and hybrid learning, and efforts to safeguard teachers, administrators, and students, cities, and countries are seeing the first signs of the next normal.

While it’s too early to list all of the ways students have been affected, we are starting to see initial indications of the toll COVID-19 has taken on learning around the world. Our analysis of available data found no country was untouched, but the impact varied across regions and within countries. Even in places with effective school systems and near-universal connectivity and device access, learning delays were significant, especially for historically vulnerable populations.?In many countries that had poor education outcomes before the pandemic, the setbacks were even greater. In those countries, an even more ambitious, coordinated effort will likely be required to address the disruption students have experienced. Our analysis highlights the extent of the challenge and demonstrates how the impact of the pandemic on learning extends across students, families, and entire communities. Beyond the direct effect on students, learning delays have the potential to affect economic growth: by 2040, according to an analysis, COVID-19-related unfinished learning could translate into $1.6 trillion in annual losses to the global economy.

Acting decisively in the near term could help to address learning delays as well as the broader social, emotional, and mental health impact on students. In mobilizing to respond to the pandemic’s effect on student learning and thriving, countries also may need to reassess their education systems—what has been working well and what may need to be reimagined considering the past two years. ?One of the challenges in assessing the global effect of the pandemic on learning is the lack of data. Comparative international assessments mostly cover middle- to high-income countries and have not been carried out since the beginning of the pandemic. The next Program for International Student Assessment (PISA), for example, was delayed until 2022.?Similarly, many countries had to cancel or defer national assessments. As a result, few nations have a complete data set, and many have no assessment data to indicate relative learning before and since school closures. Accordingly, our methodology used available data augmented by informed assumptions to get a directional picture of the pandemic’s effects on the scholastic achievement and well-being of students.

Remote and hybrid learning similarly varied widely across and within countries. Some students were supported by internet access, devices, learning management systems, adaptive learning software, live videoconferencing with teachers and peers, and home environments with parents or hired professionals to support remote learning. Others had access to radio or television programs, paper packages, and text messaging. Some students may not have had access to any learning options.?

??World Bank’s estimates on “mitigation effectiveness” by country income level to account for different levels of access to learning tools and quality through the pandemic (see the forthcoming methodological appendix for more details). in countries, the impact of COVID-19 has also affected individual students differently. Wherever assessments have taken place since the onset of the pandemic, they suggest widening gaps in both opportunity and achievement. Historically vulnerable and marginalized students are at an increased risk of falling further behind. In the United States, students in majority Black schools were half a year behind in mathematics and reading by fall 2021, while students in majority White schools were just two months behind. In Ethiopia, students in rural areas achieved under one-third of the expected learning from March to October 2020, while those in urban areas learned less than half of the expected amount.7?Assessments in New South Wales, Australia, detected minimal impact on learning overall, but third-grade students in the most disadvantaged schools experienced two months less growth in mathematics.

COVID-19-RELATED LOSSES ON TOP OF HISTORICAL INEQUALITIES

The learning crisis is not new. In the years before COVID-19, many school systems faced challenges in providing learning opportunities for many of their students. The World Bank estimates that before the pandemic, more than half of students in low- and middle-income countries were living in “learning poverty”—unable to read and understand a simple text by age ten. That number may rise as high as 70 percent due to pandemic-related school disruptions.9

The World Bank’s harmonized learning outcomes (HLOs) compare learning achievement and growth across countries. This measure combines multiple global student assessments into one metric, with a range of 625 for advanced attainment and 300 for minimum attainment. According to the World Bank’s 2018 HLO database, students from some countries in the Middle East, North Africa, and South Asia were several years behind their counterparts in North America and Europe before the pandemic. Students in these countries were also progressing more slowly each year in school. While students in high-income countries may have been gaining 50 HLO points in a year, students in low-income countries were gaining just 20. not much learning was happening in some countries even before the pandemic. Pracademic learning levels and pandemic-related learning delays interacted in different ways in different countries and regions. Although each country is unique, three archetypes emerge based on the performance of education systems.

?Countries in this archetype generally had higher pre-COVID-19 learning levels. Systems had more capacity for remote learning, and school buildings remained closed for shorter time periods.11?Data suggest that after the initial shock of the pandemic in 2020, learning delays increased only moderately with subsequent school closures in the 2021–22 school year. Some high-income countries seem to show little evidence of decreased learning overall. According to the Australian National Assessment Program–Literacy and Numeracy (NAPLAN), the COVID-19 pandemic did not have a statistically significant impact on average student literacy and numeracy levels, seven in Victoria, where learning was remote for more than 120 days.?However, in many high-income countries, the impact of the pandemic on learning remained significant. Assessments of student learning in the United States in the fall of 2021 suggested students had fallen for months behind in mathematics and three months behind in reading.?Inequalities in learning also increased within many of these countries, with historically marginalized students most affected.

Lower-income, prepandemic-challenged systems.?This archetype consists of mostly low-income and lower-middle-income countries with very low levels of pre-COVID-19 learning. When the pandemic struck, school buildings closed for varying periods of time, with limited options for remote learning. In Tanzania, for example, schools were closed for 15 weeks, and during this period, just 6 percent of households reported that their children listened to radio lessons, 5 percent watched TV lessons, and fewer than 1 percent accessed educational programs on the internet. Across the analyzed time period, schools in sub-Saharan Africa were fully open for more weeks, on average, than schools in any other region. As a result, the pandemic’s impact on learning was relatively muted, even though many of these systems faced challenges with effective remote learning. These relatively smaller pandemic learning delays are likely due in part to the limited progress students were making in schools before COVID-19.?If students weren’t progressing scholastically when schools were open, closures were likely to have less impact. In Tanzania before the pandemic, three-quarters of students in grade three could not read a basic sentence. Pandemic-affected middle-income systems.?School systems in Latin American and South Asian countries had low to moderate performance before COVID-19. Many middle-income countries in this group did have some capacity to plan and roll out remote-learning options, especially in urban areas.19?However, pandemic-related disruptions caused widespread school closures for extended periods of time—more than 50 weeks in some countries.20?The resulting learning delays may represent a true crisis for major economies such as India, Indonesia, and Mexico, where students are more than a year behind, on average. While some students may have just learned more slowly than they would have absent the pandemic, others in this archetype may have slipped backward.?This pattern could be particularly challenging since higher-order skills are increasingly important in middle-income countries with rising levels of workplace automation. One report. ?suggests India may need 34 million to 100 million more high school graduates by 2030 to fill workplace demands. The pandemic has put existing high school graduation rates at risk, let alone the vast expansion required to meet future demand for workers.

THE PANDEMIC’S EFFECTS BEYOND LEARNING

Much of the dialogue around school systems focus on educational achievement, but schools offer more than academic instruction. A school system’s contributions may include social interaction; an opportunity for students to build relationships with caring adults; a base for extracurricular activities, from the arts to athletics; an access point for physical- and mental health services; and a guarantee of balanced meals on a regular basis. The school year may also enable students to track their progress and celebrate milestones. When schools had to close for extended periods of time or move to hybrid learning, students were deprived of many of these benefits.

The pandemic’s impact on the social-emotional and mental and physical health of students has been measured even less than its impact on academic achievement, but early indications are concerning. Save the Children reports that 83 percent of children and 89 percent of parents globally have reported an increase in negative feelings since the pandemic began. In the United States, one in three parents said they were very or extremely worried about their child’s mental health in spring 2021, with rising reported levels of student anxiety, depression, social withdrawal, and lethargy.?Parents of Black and Hispanic students, the segments most affected by academic unfinished learning, also reported higher rates of concern about their student’s mental health and engagement with school. A UK survey found that 53 percent of girls and 44 percent of boys aged 13 to 18 had experienced symptoms or trauma related to COVID-19. In Bangladesh, a cross-sectional study revealed that 19.3 percent of children suffered moderate mental-health impacts, while 7.2 percent suffered from extreme mental-health effects.?Reports of violence against children rose in many countries. The pandemic affected physical health as well. Studies from the United States?and the United Kingdom?show rising rates of childhood obesity. In Latin America and the Caribbean, more than 80 million children stopped receiving hot meals.?In Uganda, a record number of monthly teenage pregnancies—more than 32,000—were recorded from March 2020 to September 2021.

Some students may never return to formal schooling at all. Even in high-income systems, levels of chronic absenteeism are rising, and some students have not re-engaged in school. In the United States, 1.7 million to 3.3 million eighth to 12th graders may drop out of school because of the pandemic. In low- and middle-income countries, the situation could be far worse. Up to one-third of Ugandan students may not return to the classroom. This pattern is in line with past historical crises involving school closures.?Among the poorest primary-school students in Sierra Leone, dropout rates increased by more than 60 percent. This may result in reduced employment opportunities and lifelong earnings potential for many of these students.

THE POTENTIAL FOR LONG-TERM ECONOMIC DAMAGE

Education can affect not just an individual’s future earnings and well-being but also a country’s economic growth and strength. Research suggests higher levels of education lead to increased labor productivity and increase an economy’s capacity for innovation. Unless the pandemic’s impact on student learning can be mitigated and students can be supported to catch up on missed learning, the global economy could experience lower GDP growth over the lifetime of this generation. We estimate by 2040, unfinished learning related to COVID-19 could translate to annual losses of $1.6 trillion to the global economy or 0.9 percent of predicted total GDP. Although the total dollar amount of forgone GDP is highest in the largest economies of the world (encompassing East Asia, Europe, and North America), the relative impact is highest in regions with the greatest learning delays. In Latin America and the Caribbean, pandemic-related school closures could result in losses of more than 2 percent of GDP annually by 2040 and in subsequent years. The economic impact could be affected further if students do not return to school and cease learning altogether. solutions

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The response to the learning crisis will likely vary from country to country, based upon preexisting educational performance, the depth and breadth of learning delays, and system resources and capacity to respond. That said, all school systems will likely need to plan across multiple skylines:

RESILIENCE

As 2022 began, more than 95 percent of school systems around the world were at least partially open for traditional in-person learning.?That progress is encouraging but tenuous. Many systems reopened only to close again when another wave of COVID-19 caused additional disruptions. Even within partially open systems, not all students have access to in-person learning, and many are still attending partial days or weeks. Building resilience could mean ensuring protocols are in place for safe and supportive in-person learning, and ensuring plans are in place to provide remote options that support the whole child at the system, school, and student levels in response to future crises. School systems can also benefit by creating the flexibility to change policies and procedures as new data and circumstances arise.

REENROLLMENT

Opening buildings and embedding effective safety precautions have been challenging for many systems, but ensuring students and teachers turn up and reengage with learning is perhaps even more difficult. Even where in-person learning has resumed, many students have not returned or remain chronically absent.?Families may still have safety worries about in-person learning. Some students may have found jobs and now rely on that income.?Others may have become pregnant or now act as caregivers at home. Still others may feel so far behind academically or so disconnected from the school environment at a social level that a return feels impossible. A multipronged approach could be helpful to understand the barriers students may face, how those could differ across student segments, and ways to support all students in continuing their educational journeys.

Systems could consider a tiered approach to support reengagement. Tier-one interventions could be rolled out for all students and include both improving school offerings for families and students and communicating about enhanced services. This might involve back-to-school awareness campaigns at the national and community levels featuring respected community members, clear communication of safety protocols, access to free food and other basic needs on campuses, and the promotion of a positive school climate with deep family engagement.

Tier-two interventions, which could be directed at students who are at heightened risk of not returning to school, may involve more targeted support. These efforts might include community events and canvassing to bring school buses or mobile libraries to historically marginalized neighborhoods, phone- or text-banking aimed at students who have not returned to school, or summer opportunities to persuade ?students to return to the school campus. At the student level, it could include providing some groups of students with deeper learning or social-emotional recovery services to help them reintegrate into school. Tier-three intrusions include more intensive and specialized support. These efforts may include visits to the homes of individual students or new educational environments tailored to student needs, such as, ?night schools for students who need to complete high school while working.

RECOVERY

Once students are back in school, many may need support to recover from the academic and social-emotional effects of the pandemic. Indeed, while academic recovery seems daunting, supporting the mental-health and social-emotional needs of students may end up being the bigger challenge. This process starts with a recognition that each child is unique and that the pandemic has affected different students in different ways. Understanding each student’s situation, in terms of both learning and well-being, is important at the classroom level, with teachers and administrators trained to interpret cues from students and refer them to more intensive support when necessary. Assessments will likely also be needed at the school and system levels to plan the response.With an understanding of both the depth and breadth of student needs, systems and schools could consider three levers of academic acceleration: more time, more dedicated attention, and more focused content. Implementation of these levers will likely vary by context, but the overall goals are the same: to overcome both historical gaps and new COVID-19-related losses, and to do so across academic and whole-child indicators.

In high-income countries, digital formative assessments could help determine in real time what students know, where they may have gaps, and what the next step could be for each child. More relational tactics can be allotted alongside digital assessments, such as teachers taking the time to connect with each child around a simple reading assessment, which may rebuild relationships and connectivity while assessing student capabilities. Schools could also consider universal mental-health diagnostics and screeners, and train teachers and staff to recognize the signs of trauma in students.

Once schools have identified students who need academic support, proven, evidence-based solutions could support acceleration in high-income school systems. High-dosage tutoring, for example, could enable students to learn one to two additional years of mathematics in a single year. Delivered three to five times a week by trained college graduates during the school day on top of regular math instruction, this type of tutoring is labor and capital intensive but has a high return on investment. Acceleration academies, which provide 25 hours of targeted instruction in reading to small groups of eight to 12 students during vacations, have helped students gain three months of reading in just one week. Exposing students to grade-level content and providing them with targeted supports and scaffolds to access this content has improved course completion rates by two to four times over traditional “re-teaching” remediation approaches. With an understanding of both the depth and breadth of student needs, systems and schools could consider three levers academic acceleration: more time, more dedicated attention, and more focused content. In low- and middle-income countries, where learning delays may have been much greater and where the financial and human-capital resources for education can be more limited, different implementation approaches may be required. Simple, fast, inexpensive, and low-stakes evaluations of student learning could be carried out at the classroom level using pen and paper, oral assessments, and mobile data collection, for example.

Solutions for supporting the acceleration of student learning in these contexts could start with ensuring foundational literacy and numeracy (FLN), prioritizing essential standards and content. Evidence-based teaching methods could speed up learning which groups children by learning needs, rather than by age or grade, and dedicates time to basic skills with continual reassessment—has led to improvements of more than a year of learning in classrooms and summer camps. Even with the application of existing approaches, more time in class may be required—with options to extend the school year or school day to support students. Widespread tutoring may not be realistic in some countries, but peer-to-peer tutoring and cross-grade mentoring and coaching could supplement in-class efforts.

REIMAGINING

\In addition to accelerating learning in the shortterm, systems can also use this moment to consider how to build better systems for the future. This may involve both recommitting to the core fundamentals of educational excellence and reimagining elements of instruction, teaching, and leadership for a post-COVID-19 world.41?A lot of ground could be covered by rolling out existing evidence-based interventions at scale—recommitting to core literacy and numeracy skills, high-quality instructional materials, job-embedded teacher coaching, and effective performance management. Recommitting to these basics, however, may not be enough. Systems can also innovate across multiple dimensions: providing whole-child supports, using technology to improve access and quality, moving toward competency-based learning, and rethinking teacher preparation and roles, school structures, and resource allocation.

For example, many systems are reemphasizing the importance of caring for the whole child. Integrating social-emotional learning for all students, providing trauma-informed training for teachers and staff,42?and providing counseling and more intensive support on and off campus for some students could provide supportive schooling environments beyond immediate crisis support.43?A UNESCO survey suggests that 78 percent of countries offered psychosocial and emotional support to teachers as a response to the pandemic.44?Looking forward, the State of California is launching a $3 billion multiyear transition to community schools, taking an integrated approach to students’ academic, health, and social-emotional needs in the context of the broader community in which those students live.45

The role of education technology in instruction is another much-debated element of reimagining. Proponents believe education technology holds promise to overcome human-capital challenges to improved access and quality, especially given the acceleration of digital adoption during the pandemic. Others point out that historical efforts to harness technology in education have not yielded results at scale.46

Numerous experiments are under way in low- and middle-income countries where human capital challenges are the greatest. Robust solar-powered tablets loaded with the evidence-based literacy and numeracy app onebillion led to learning gains of more than four months47?in Malawi, with plans to roll out the program across the country’s 5,300 primary schools.48?NewGlobe’s digital teacher guides provide scripted lesson plans on devices designed for low-infrastructure environments. In Nigeria, students using these tools progressed twice as fast in numeracy and three times as fast in literacy as their peers.49?As new solutions are rolled out, it will likely be important to continually evaluate their impact compared with existing evidence-based approaches to retain what is working and discard that which is not.

Charting a potential path forward

There is no precedent for global learning delays at this scale, and the increasing automation of the workforce advances the urgency of supporting students to catch up to—and possibly exceed—prepandemic education levels to thrive in the global economy. Systems will likely need resources, knowledge, and organizational capacity to make progress across these priorities. Even before COVID-19, UNESCO estimated that low- and middle-income countries faced a funding gap of $148 billion a year to reach universal preprimary, primary, and secondary education by 2030 as required by UN Sustainable Development Goal 4. As a result of the pandemic, that gap has widened to $180 billion to $195 billion a year.?Even if that funding gap were closed, the result would be increased enrollment, not improvements in learning. UNESCO estimates that just 3 percent of global stimulus funds related to COVID-19 have been directed to education, 97 percent of which is concentrated in high-income countries.

In many countries, shortages of teachers and administrators are just as pressing as the lack of funding. Many teachers in Uganda weren’t paid during the pandemic and have found new careers.?Even high-income countries are grappling with teacher shortages. In the United States, 40 percent of district leaders and principals describe their current staff shortages as “severe” or “very severe.”53?Fully addressing pandemic-related learning losses will require a full accounting of the cost and a long-term commitment, recognizing the critical importance of investments in education for future economic growth and stability. Countries do not need to reinvent the wheel or go it alone. Many existing resources catalog evidence-based practices relevant to different contexts, both historical approaches and those specific to COVID-19 recovery. For low- and middle-income countries, materials developed in partnership with UNESCO, UNICEF, and the World Bank include tools to support FLN, Continuous and Accelerated Learning, and teacher capacity (Teach and Coach). UNESCO’s COVID-19 Response Toolkit provides guidance across income levels. Collaboration across schools, regions, and countries could also promote knowledge sharing at a time of evolving needs and practices—from webinars to active communities of practice and shared-learning collaboratives.

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Organizing for the response across these multiple levels is a challenge even for the most well-resourced and sophisticated systems. Our recent research found 80 percent of government efforts to transform performance don’t fully meet their objectives.?Success will likely require a relentless focus on implementation and execution, with multiple feedback loops to achieve continuous learning and improvement. The COVID-19 pandemic was indisputably a global health and economic crisis. Our research suggests it also caused an education crisis on a scale never seen before. The pandemic also showed, however, that innovation and collaboration can arise out of hardship. The global education community has an opportunity to come together to respond, bringing evidence-based practices at scale to every classroom. Working together, donors and investors, school systems and districts, principals and teachers, and parents and families can ensure that the students who endured the pandemic are not a lost generation but are instead defined by their resilience.

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CONCLUSION

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“The?consensus?is?that?COVID?will?become?endemic?from?the?pandemic,?which?means?that?we?will?live?with?it?like?we?do?with?the?flu?without?as?grave?consequences?as?today.?It?is?not?a?light?switch?event?to?get?to?an?endemic?phase,?because?it?is?as?much?about?the?behavior?and?psychology?thathat?we?all?display?as?it?is?about?the?epidemiology?of?the?virus?itself.” As the world moves toward endemicity, challenges will continue to arise—as will new solutions. Now, some of the biggest issues revolve around the pandemic’s knock-on effects: on talent, supply chains, inclusive growth, and more. Explore curated reads for more on what matters to us.

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The exact assessment of the economic damage from COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic will be, there is extensive pact among economists that it will have severe negative impacts on the global economy. Early estimates predicated that, should the virus become a global pandemic, most major economies will lose at least 2.9 percent of their GDP?over 2020. This forecast was already reaffirmed to a GDP loss of 3.4 percent. It is in perspective of GDP?was estimated at around 84.54 trillion U.S. dollars in 2020 describing that a 4.5 percent drop in economic growth results in almost 2.96 trillion U.S. dollars of lost economic output.