The COVID-19 pandemic should mark the beginning of a new era where a Human Rights Based Approach is neither recommended nor hoped for, but is an obligation when developing immediate and long-term responses to public health crises. Where human rights were previously simply mentioned and tolerated (alongside Sustainable Development Goals for instance), they should now form the basis for the construction of resilient societies in the post-COVID-19 area. This article first analyses the various dimensions of the public health and human rights crisis engendered by the pandemic, in order to identify, secondly, the breadth of the efforts that need to be made for a short- and long-term human rights-based response to COVID-19.