Welcome to this special pandemic issue of The Actuary. It seems fitting, though unfortunate, that I write this editorial having tested positive for COVID-19 myself…
The pandemic was declared in early March 2020, and the UK went into its first lockdown at the end of that month. We originally thought that the April 2022 issue would feature a few ‘two years on’ articles, but thanks to the overwhelming amount of interest we received, we bring you an almost entire issue of COVID-19-related articles, looking back – and ahead – at different aspects of the pandemic. Thank you so much for your contributions.
For this issue, I spoke to Matthew Edwards and Stuart McDonald about their work as part of the COVID-19 Actuaries Response Group and the CMI (p14). We also read about pandemic scenario modelling as part of the IFoA COVID-19 Action Taskforce (p20), and actuaries’ contributions to the UK’s public sector response (p34). Further afield, we consider factors that have contributed to different national responses and outcomes (p36), zooming in on Singapore and India (p17). Looking beyond healthcare and first-order impacts of the pandemic, we also consider motor, cyber (p22) and supply chain risks (p29).
And finally, what next? What does it mean to go from pandemic to endemic (p26)? What do we know about long COVID (p23)? And can we prepare for the next extreme event (p18)?
I hope you enjoy this issue.
Ruolin Wang, Editor [email protected]
