Reflecting on the up-to-date global experience of the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic is of crucial importance in order to draw conclusions needed for the design of policies aiming the prevention of new epidemics and the effective protection, preparedness and response of any new emerging. Ongoing environmental destruction, excess mortality by COVID-19 and non-COVID diseases reflecting the dismantlement and commodification of both public health services and healthcare services, deep economic crisis, increasing and deepening social inequalities are the main characteristics raised by the pandemic. The causes of the causes of all these are the dominant rules of the capitalistic system, driven mainly by the unlimited greed for profit on the expenses of the majority of the society. The effectiveness of any proposed correction of this system is discussed and the need for another society responding to the needs of the population is argued.
IJHPM