HEALTH experts have called for a “well-being economy” to emerge after the coronavirus crisis, Plan B said TOday.

During a panel discussion on Wednesday, the climate change litigation charity heard from government chief scientific adviser Sir David King, Extinction Rebellion co-founder Dr Gail Bradbrook, professors Sir Michael Marmot, Kevin Anderson and Sam Fankhauser, and Dr Jason Hickel.

Plan B said the panel came to a broad consensus that without major shifts in the global economic orientation, the world is heading for a 3-4°C rise in global temperatures this century, placing billions of lives at risk.

During the discussion, Prof Marmot, who also chairs the World Health Organisation’s commission on the social determinants of health, said: “What the Covid crisis exposes is that we can do things differently. We must not go back to the status quo, we cannot do that.

“So what I would like to see — and we are seeing it at some regional levels within the UK as well as some other countries — is putting the likely impact on health equity at the heart of all policy-making. 

“That would lead to better environmental policy, it would lead to better social policy, it would lead to better healthcare policy and better political policies.

“I’d like to see a well-being economy emerge from this crisis.”  

In a statement TOday, Plan B said: “Humanity stands at a crossroads. Governments must resist the opportunity to bail out ‘business as usual’ and place human health and well-being at the centre of economic policy.”