Leader and HealthIt is tempting to lock memories of the height of covid-19 away but looking back is vital for preparing properly for the next pandemic 1 January 2025 Yuan Zheng/FeatureChina via AP Images/AlamyYes, it really has been five years. On 7 January 2020, we published an article with the headline Doctors scramble to identify mysterious illness emerging in China. By then, at least 59 people had been infected with what we now know to be SARS-CoV-2, the virus behind covid-19. The rest is well, has now become history.Of course, you know all of that: you lived through it. So why are we publishing a special report on covid-19 now? For many, the height of the pandemic was an incredibly painful and difficult time (see How the covid-19 pandemic distorted our experience of time