Conclusion

In the introduction to this book, we used the analogy of H. G. Wells' The war of the worlds in which Martians invaded Earth, but were eventually destroyed by microbes similar to the COVID-19 virus. The irony here is that in the fictional story Earth-based pathogens helped save humanity from marauding aliens, but the real life version is vastly different—humans have to save ourselves from the destructive COVID-19 virus. So far, there have been mixed results regarding how we have used human ingenuity to defeat the virus. Some countries such as Aotearoa New Zealand and Fiji, both of which feature in the book, have been successful in eradicating and controlling the virus, while some like the United States (US) and many European countries have struggled to keep up with the spreading infection. Many countries in the Global South, which were earlier identified as potential hotspots, have done considerably better than industrialized and technologically advanced states. One of the reasons for this is the use and extensive prevalence of community-based social protection systems and reliance on social solidarity economies. © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2021.