Authors: Robert M. Califf
Summary: During the past year, clinicians and the public have been focused on the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic and its associated societal and economic impacts. However, once the acute phase of this crisis is past, we will face an enormous wave of death and disability due to common chronic diseases (CCDs), with cardiometabolic diseases at the crest. A tsunami results when an earthquake on the ocean floor creates huge waves that can wreak devastation far distant from the original upheaval, especially when warnings are ignored. Similarly, underlying global and national demographic and risk-factor profiles have for some time presaged an overwhelming burden of CCDs. But while the pandemic has created additional impetus that unless heeded will amplify the consequences of this burden, the rapid adaptations and innovations in care and research prompted by the urgent response to it may also offer us the means to stem this flood.
Source: Circulation, 2021