Dear Editor,

With recent cuts to funding linked to COVID-19 and pandemic readiness, the US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) has proclaimed it “will no longer waste billions of taxpayer dollars responding to a non-existent pandemic that Americans moved on from years ago”. While devastating for researchers and the many who continue to suffer from COVID-19, including long COVID, this move should perhaps be unsurprising in a world where “after COVID” and “post COVID” are common parlance, including within our public health community. This language is confounding not only because COVID-19 straightforwardly remains a threat, but also because one would be hard-pressed to find anyone similarly willing to say “post AIDS”, for example, despite AIDS being first recognized nearly half a century ago, or “post Ebola”, despite the two Ebola public health emergencies of international concern (PHEIC) ending years ago.

Even the language of “post pandemic” confuses the end of the COVID-19 public health emergency of international concern in May 2023 with the end of the pandemic, the latter being something that is not formally declared and remains contestable. Irrespective of where one stands on this point, the metaphysical questions of what constitutes a pandemic and exactly when one ends is less important than the risk communication question of whether using the language of “post COVID”, “post pandemic”, or even “back during COVID” obscures risk perception and contributes to an unwitting shift in research priorities. Unless we wish to move on from COVID in research, we must not imply we have moved on from COVID through our language.

Suggesting the world is “post COVID” contributes to an unwitting shift in research priorities

^{The BMJ}