Introduction
James D. Chalmers1, Catia Cilloniz 2,3 and Bin Cao4,5,6,7
1 Division of Respiratory Medicine and Gastroenterology, University of Dundee, Dundee, UK. 2 Institut
d’Investigacions Biomèdiques August Pi i Sunyer (IDIBAPS), University of Barcelona, Ciber de Enfermedades
Respiratorias (Ciberes), Barcelona, Spain. 3 Faculty of Health Sciences, Continental University, Huancayo, Peru.
4 National Center for Respiratory Medicine, State Key Laboratory of Respiratory Health and Multimorbidity, National
Clinical Research Center for Respiratory Diseases, Institute of Respiratory Medicine, Chinese Academy of Medical
Sciences, Department of Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine, Center of Respiratory Medicine, China-Japan
Friendship Hospital, Beijing, China. 5 Department of Respiratory Medicine, Capital Medical University, Beijing, China.
6 Tsinghua University-Peking University Joint Center for Life Sciences, Beijing, China. 7 New Cornerstone Science
Laboratory, China-Japan Friendship Hospital, Beijing, China.
Corresponding author: James D. Chalmers (j.chalmers@dundee.ac.uk)
@ERSpublications
The second ERS Monograph dedicated to COVID-19 offers a reflective view of the pandemic. It provides a
patient perspective of the pandemic, as well as considering the pathophysiology of the infection and the
consequences on global health. https://bit.ly/ERSM105intro
Copyright ©ERS 2024. Print ISBN: 978-1-84984-181-8. Online ISBN: 978-1-84984-182-5. Print ISSN: 2312-508X. Online
ISSN: 2312-5098.
This is the second ERS Monograph dedicated to COVID-19 and we write at a very different
time, and in a very different healthcare environment, than when Aurelie Fabre, John R. Hurst
and Sheila Ramjug published their Monograph in December 2021. At that time, the WHO still
considered COVID-19 to be a global pandemic. Vaccines had become available in late 2020/
early 2021 in many parts of the world but were still being rolled out. New variants were
emerging, contributing to ongoing waves of infection and still placing a significant burden of
the disease on healthcare, including inpatient care. It would take another 18 months before the
WHO declared, on the 5th May 2023, that COVID-19 was no longer a public health emergency
of international concern.
COVID-19 has not gone away, but developing a Monograph on COVID-19 to be published in
2024 requires a different perspective. In 2021, we were still very much at the beginning of the
story, with many basic questions unanswered and a full understanding of the impact of the
pandemic still elusive. In 2024, we can be more reflective and consider how the pandemic
began and developed, understanding how COVID-19 and the public health measures taken to
control it have affected public health. We can also consider how lessons learned during the
pandemic are now influencing clinical trials and translational science, as well as our thinking
about the role of viruses and the pathophysiology of chronic diseases like COPD and asthma.
Looking to the future, we must consider how COVID-19 may evolve in an era of high
population immunity and its clinical significance as another endemic respiratory virus.
A few chapters merit special mention. We are particularly pleased to incorporate a patient
perspective of the pandemic and its impact, developed in collaboration with the European Lung
viii https://doi.org/10.1183/2312508X.10012024
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