Reclaiming comprehensive public health

### Summary box Over the past 6 months, we have witnessed diversity in the spread and severity of the COVID-19 and in the nature and timing of responses to it in different countries and contexts.1 Acute emergencies often mobilise a short spurt of attention and resources. COVID-19 is, however, a protracted pandemic that spreads through and exacerbates socioeconomic inequalities and stresses health and democratic systems in a way that calls for sustained responses from local to global levels. The ways that different governments have responded to COVID-19 highlight the long-standing tensions between different frameworks and approaches to public health. Broadly characterised, one approach views people as rights holders who should actively be engaged in proactive interventions that address the social determinants of …