Final thoughts
Citizens have a crucial role to play ahead in shaping the "new normal" and choosing between nationalist isolation or global solidarity. The epidemic itself and the resulting economic chaos are a global problem that can only be addressed through collaboration—and we should take stock of how more "collectivist" countries are weathering the pandemic storm far better than the more "individualist" countries are to date.
In order to beat COVID-19 and minimize future viral threats, we need to share information globally. But we also need to act locally to harness trust from our citizens, building individual and community resilience—and from there national health resilience. The concept of decentralized, or distributed, health resilience is something we will explore in this book.
Scientific cooperation has exploded in the quest to understand what puts people at risk of infection, why some suffer more than others, and what treatments and vaccines might be able to prevent further deaths. The next chapter will lay the groundwork on the science of aging, including the role of genomics and regenerative medicine, as well as more ethereal considerations on what gives us the "will to live."