Rob Verkerk

In the wake of the Better Way conference (/news/a-better-way-for-a-better-world-bath-2022/) in Bath (UK), it’s been nothing short of mind-blowing sharing time over the last two weeks with fellow activists for better health systems, if that’s how we should refer to what we’re trying to co-create.

With some irony, it is the orchestrated, global deception and broad mismanagement of SARS-CoV-2 by health authorities that has brought so many of us together – groups of people from diverse backgrounds, including doctors, other health practitioners, scientists, lawyers – along with millions of others around the world. People who wouldn’t have come together otherwise, or at least within such a compressed time frame. So with all the suffering that’s occurred, the unnecessary lives lost, the grief, the iatrogenically injured, the lost livelihoods, the social deprivation, and the shifting sands of power structures, we must still find some space for gratitude.

Thank you, covid-19 (C19), for being a catalyst for a revolution that was desperately needed, one that allows liberty, human creativity, hope and nature to conspire in ways that facilitate the future fitness of our species. Some may still want to choose a shackled life that is designed and determined in ivory towers and corporate board rooms, but let that be a choice, not our sole option.

With that said, I wanted to take you on a short journey that includes some of the reflections I’ve shared over the last few days with some of our international collaborators, all brought together under the umbrella of the World Council for Health (http://www.worldcouncilforhealth.org).