GENEVA, Switzerland — An awkward question remains five years after Covid-19 began its deadly rampage: Is the world ready to handle the next pandemic?
The World Health Organization, which was at the heart of the pandemic response, has been galvanizing efforts to determine where the next threat might come from and to ensure the planet is ready to face it.
Gravediggers lower a coffin during a funeral for a victim of the Covid-19 coronavirus at Kayu Manis cemetery in Bogor, West Java on Oct. 4, 2020. Five years since Covid-19 started upending the world, the virus is still infecting and killing people across the globe — though at far lower levels than during the height of the pandemic.
Photo by ADITYA AJI / AFP