Health Policy Lessons from the First Wave of Coronavirus (COVID-19) to Reduce Economic and Health Impacts from Anticipated Future Waves

Coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic has caused great shocks across all sectors of society. The pandemic highlighted three crucial policy issues (i.e., healthcare spending, social determinants of health, and health equity). It is also projected that recurrent wintertime outbreaks of COVID-19 will likely occur after this initial wave in the next few years.

Descriptive review was conducted to provide information on the critical lessons learned from the first wave of COVID-19 to improve the well-being of society in light of predicted future waves. We searched articles from PubMed/Medline, Scopus, Embase, and Google Scholar with systematic search inquiry.

We included 96 articles in this descriptive review. Health is the ultimate goal of the healthcare sector and an essential prerequisite for achieving other societal goals. The first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic showed that countries that have given less attention to social determinants of health (SDH), health equity, and marginalized, vulnerable populations faced the tremendous burden of disease morbidity and mortality. Spending on healthcare or other developmental sectors should be based country’s health production function status (i.e., understanding the marginal return of healthcare). Health and well-being are indivisible from other societal goals. It should be addressed with due consideration of their interconnectedness. A comprehensive multi-disciplinary approach involving health in all policies, which integrates SDH and health equity into modeling with the principle of leaving no one behind, will have a critical impact on improving economic and health outcomes during future anticipated COVID-19 Waves.

In general, improving and adopting novel strategies, confronting the multiple facets of the public health mitigation measures, and facilitating and stimulating interdisciplinary public health interventions are essential to reduce the health and economic impacts of anticipated future COVID-19 waves. Developing countries could benefit from increasing public expenditure on health with due consideration of SDH. For developed countries like the United States, it is imperative to shift health policy focus from illness-oriented healthcare towards policies that affect the social determinants of health.