At the start of the pandemic, many people living with diabetes were wondering what COVID-19 meant for them. Diabetes was already known to put people at higher risks from other infectious diseases, including flu. Would it be the same with COVID-19? At the time, all scientists could do was make educated guesses.
In 2024, things look very different. A great deal more research is available, as well as effective vaccines, and life has in many ways returned to something like normal.
COVID-19 hasn’t disappeared, however, and for the more than 400 million people living with diabetes worldwide, very real risks and impacts from the pandemic remain.
I specialize in drawing on and combining existing evidence to inform health policy across a range of areas. I’ve been studying COVID-19 and diabetessince the start of the pandemic and have experienced firsthand some of the many ways in which COVID-19 has affected people with diabetes. I’ve lived with Type 1 diabetes for the past 30 years. And at the start of the pandemic, I had a lot of questions about what COVID-19 meant for me.