Speak truth to power and consolidate the nursing visibility gained during COVID-19

To provide a perspective on the visibility of nursing gained during the COVID-19 pandemic and propose strategic options for nurses to consolidate their expanded roles and influence.

The COVID-19 pandemic has exposed long-standing inequities across the world. Factors preserving discrimination weakened during the emergency are now being re-established by neo-liberalist influences that dismiss the true scale of the disaster and shape the narrative in ways that increase public risk and render nurses invisible.

All evidence drawn from publicly available sources is presented through the lens of the authors' nursing, management, education, policy and research experience.

Nurse advocacy will be needed during future decades of pandemic control and recovery and be in a position to deliver appropriate care and services.

For nurses at all levels to remain visible, important, valued and respected, they need to be informed, engaged and willing to make a stand to preserve the hard-won reputational gains of the last 30 months of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Nurse advocacy and engagement are needed to maintain public awareness of the ongoing risks and safety options associated with the pandemic.

Nurses and other health practitioners need to reveal the true level of devastation that continues to occur and guide the focus of political and administrative strategies in response to COVID-19 impacts on services and public health orders.