Lessons from COVID: Invest properly in community-based healthcare. Help disadvantaged groups get vaccinated.

With COVID exposing the cracks in our health system and the marginalisation of certain groups who are vulnerable to the virus, Jacques and Jennifer talk about a different approach led by the World Health Organisation that seems to have gone out of fashion.The WHO defines health as a state of complete physical, mental and social wellbeing, not just the absence of disease. Health and ill health are seen as happening in the communities where people live and work, and within the economic systems and natural ecosystems they are part of.Jacques and Jennifer suggest we properly resource a community-based, empowering approach to health, as developed by the WHO, that considers the environments and systems people are part of.Most immediately we need to work with marginalised communities to increase COVID vaccination before we open up. Otherwise the virus will certainly ‘rip through’ these communities.