The psychologist Steven Pinker has long believed we should be more optimistic – and even current crises do not dissuade him
to explain why he believes there are still reasons to remain optimistic in 2022. “We have to remember that there’s no law of nature that spaces bad things apart,” he said. “Bad things happen, and they will appear to come in clusters – but it doesn’t mean that we’re being punished for our collective sins or that we’re in a uniquely dangerous moment.” He maintains humanity has the tools to deal with the challenges we face.
There is certainly something comforting about seeing cause for hope in crises. But do we really have good grounds for optimism? To find out, theHealth in the time of Covid The Covid-19 pandemic is the obvious place to start. According to the World Health Organization, more than 6.4 million have so far died of the infection, since the virus emerged. In a sample of 37 countries, thefound all but six had experienced a reduction in life expectancy as a result.
The jury is still out on the UK government’s initial response to the crisis. But the rapid development of Covid vaccines is undoubtedly a triumph of scientific progress. According to a recent study from Imperial College’s Centre for Global Infectious Disease Analysis, the vaccination programme saved at least 14 million people – and potentially as many as 19.8 million – in its first year.
This simply wouldn’t have been possible in years gone by; all previous vaccines had taken at least five years to develop, and at the start of the pandemic many scientists believed the possibility of creating a new one from scratch was naively optimistic. That may be some cause of optimism for our ability to deal with future health threats.
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