Commentary: COVID-19 is officially no longer a global health emergency – here’s what that means

In the UK for example, COVID-19 no longer features in the regular Office for National Statistics public opinion survey that asks people what they think the key issues facing the country are. Even a year ago, only two in five Britons were very or somewhat worried about COVID-19, according to the survey.

Along with other behavioural scientists, I have been following public experiences of the pandemic for the past three years. The results have yet to be peer reviewed but by summer 2022, many participants in our research described the pandemic as being like “a distant memory” or like it “never happened”.

As we move into this next phase, it’s time to consider what we’ve learnt about human behaviour during the pandemic, and what happens next.

OLD HABITS DIE HARD

In the early days of the pandemic, many behavioural scientists, myself included, wondered whether some of our pandemic habits were here to stay. Would face masks become a regular wardrobe staple? Would people stop “soldiering on” and going into work when unwell?

It turned out that for most people, the pandemic hasn’t permanently changed our behaviour and habits or created a “new normal”. Looking again at the UK, face mask use has consistently declined, with figures from last month suggesting that fewer than one in six adults had worn a face mask recently. Regular use is likely much less common.

Social distancing has long since disappeared, except for a relatively small proportion of the public, in particular those most vulnerable to COVID-19.

The COVID-19 pandemic has taught us how adaptive behaviour can be, in particular how much people were willing to change their behaviour to keep themselves and others safe. Most people followed the rules during the height of the pandemic, no matter how difficult. COVID-19 has reminded us how resilient we humans can be.