COVID-19 and the World Population

The last two years have seen the biggest epidemic to hit the world since the Flu epidemic of 1918-1920. For demographers, the epidemic has produced many professional challenges: How do we estimate the numbers infected and the number who have died, directly and indirectly, from the disease? How do we build models describing the phases of the epidemic and how do we explain differences between countries, regions, and populations? Have we learnt anything that will help us reduce the severity of the current or future pandemics? And what lessons are to be learnt for non-pandemic, non-Covid morbidity and mortality?