Leaders | The way we live now

Covid-19 is here to stay. People will have to adapt

The world is not experiencing a second wave: it never got over the first

Editor’s note: Some of our covid-19 coverage is free for readers of The Economist Today, our daily newsletter. For more stories and our pandemic tracker, see our hub

IT IS ASTONISHING how rapidly the pandemic has spread, despite all the efforts to stop it. On February 1st, the day covid-19 first appeared on our front cover, the World Health Organisation counted 2,115 new cases. On June 28th its daily tally reached 190,000. That day as many new cases were notched up every 90 minutes as had been recorded in total by February 1st.

This article appeared in the Leaders section of the print edition under the headline "The way we live now"

Retro or radical?

From the July 2nd 2020 edition

Discover stories from this section and more in the list of contents

Explore the edition

More from Leaders

Why South Africans are fed up after 30 years of democracy

After a bright start the ANC has proved incapable of governing for the whole country

How disinformation works—and how to counter it

More co-ordination is needed, and better access to data


America’s reckless borrowing is a danger to its economy—and the world’s

Without good luck or a painful adjustment, the only way out will be to let inflation rip