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My View on the COVID-19 Pandemic, Best Article Winner 2021, China Foreign Affairs University (CFAU), Article Contest

China Foreign Affairs University (CFAU), 2021

The Focus :The coronavirus disease pandemic of 2019 (COVID-19) has established itself as a multidisciplinary phenomenon. No scientific discipline seems to be spared from the mysterious wind of COVID-19. While medicine and other related disciplines are likely to be directly affected by it, social science disciplines—including politics, sociology, anthropology, etc. — are also affected by the winds of this pandemic. Thus, doctors, physicists, chemists, biologists, virologists... are not the only ones to address the issues surrounding COVID-19. Political scientists, sociologists, anthropologists... can as well talk about it—and they're already doing it. Of course, everyone approaches it from the perspective and prescriptions of his or her own discipline. And in each discipline, COVID-19 is well analyzed, discussed, approached or spoken about according to several possible dimensions. Some see it as a dependent variable, while others see it as an independent variable, but also as a background or general framework for analysis. A single phenomenon that generates various observations, analyses, studies and writings. As a political scientist, I intend to express here my point of view on this COVID-19 pandemic from the perspective and prescriptions of political science. I’m going to focus on the international politics dimension, while addressing strictly speaking the issues surrounding globalization’s thematic—in order to explain why it is absurd to think, shout and believe to the end of globalization with the COVID-19’s impacts. And this focus’s point seems interesting to me, just in the sense that I wanted to circumscribe my thinking here in this paper—so as not to go in all directions, and fall into mishmash and bric-a-brac. Abstract: With the COVID-19’s impacts to humanity, some have quickly shouted, believed and thought abusively to the end of globalization. But in this paper, following to the dimension of the strategic approach of analysis, tinged with a bit of globalism, I propose to explain why globalization could not end with the COVID-19’s impacts. In total, I advance successively throughout this paper, five (5) core arguments, which together ostensibly support my central point, pointing to the impossibility of arriving at the end of globalization with the COVID-19’s impacts. These five (5) core arguments are: COVID-19 as a pro-globalization messenger: "You are living in a global village" (i), Virus complex nature (ii), Nationalism and unilateralism as COVID-19's counter-antidote strategies (iii), COVID-19's impacts nature on social-economic activities (iv), and the Global complex interdependence (v). And instead of shouting to the end of globalization, humanity should rather seek to think about, understand and internalize the different lessons that COVID-19 has just come to give it—for its best survival. Otherwise, disaster is coming.

Title: Life after COVID-19: Understanding the environment for humanity's survival and sustenance

Epistēmēs Metron Logos Journal No 4, 2020

The unprecedented restrictive measures imposed to stem the spread of Covid-19 disease have altered, among other things, our environmental footprint. First reports are notably encouraging, showing reductions in CO2 emissions and improvement in air quality. This essay attempts to examine whether a “positive side” could be detected in this pandemic whose impact seems cataclysmic with thousands of deaths and fears for a deep, profound global economic recession. I will cautiously argue that the longer-run environmental impact of the pandemic might be positive, though noting that a blind approval of the environmental amelioration due to the imposed restrictions entails a great risk as it may be an offshoot of a dark eco-fascist ideology promoting authoritarian and anti-democratic ideas towards improving the environment. Alongside, I will lay emphasis on the need of a new policy, i.e. a new ethical approach and deontology, oriented towards rationalizing our relationship with the natural world. At any rate, the speed of environmental deterioration does not allow a retrospective re-contemplation of the events occurring within our sociopolitical reality. It is essential that world economies prosper again without abandoning the environmental protection and that data collected during the lockdown period should serve as guidance for governments and institutions during the implementation of their recovery plans.

On the frontline—Sustainability and development research amidst the COVID-19 pandemic

COVID-19 outbreak has exposed the world population to a condition of unprecedented public health and global health vulnerability. Preliminary and projected consequences have exhibited their harmfulness for socio-economic, environmental and political systems. In this framework, development and sustainability turn focal policy targets to limit the humanitarian and ecosystems impacts of the pandemic and stimulate mitigation, preparedness and adaptation to change. This work aims at furnishing a prompt array of key tools to analyse, comprehend and disentangle the sketched issues. For this scope, it is conducted a bibliometric analysis for depicting and mapping the early scholarship response on the relationship between the 2019 Coronavirus, sustainability and development within the pandemics discourse. The research finds a relevant bulk of early publications and geographical insights, principally published on environmental and economic policy, global and public health journals by US, UK, ...

People, Power, and Politics in the Post-Pandemic World Order

People, Power, and Politics in the Post-Pandemic World Order, 2023

2020 showed the world that the international system is always open to global crises. Throughout history, several breaking points significantly impacted the international system, such as the Peace of Westphalia, the French Revolution, the Industrial Revolution, the World Wars, the end of the Cold War, and 9/11. In other words, the world has endured many global crises throughout history, such as global-scale wars, biohazards, and, most importantly, pandemics that have affected millions of people. After the outbreak of the coronavirus pandemic in early 2020, the international system entered a transition process that involved many countries in different ways. Some countries imposed mandatory curfews, and some closed their borders to foreigners. Moreover, for many countries, medical supplies turned into goods to be traded on the black market, hard to find and very hard to share. Even though two years have passed since the COVID-19 pandemic became a norm for the international public, its effects, most arguably its aftermath, still carry on. As such, it is essential to understand this transition from different angles. This book explores and evaluates the issues upon which the COVID-19 pandemic had a significant effect, such as migration management, climate change, diplomacy, regional politics, and globalisation.

Social, economic and environmental implications of the COVID-19 pandemic

Frontiers in Psychology

The COVID-19 pandemic led to global lockdowns that severely curtailed economic activity. In this study, we set out to examine the social, economic, and environmental ramifications of the COVID-19 pandemic. This is a rare project that will have far-reaching consequences for the field. There are five sets of issues: short-term effects on oil and economic and agricultural policies, including regulations and COP26; long-term implications of monetary and fiscal intervention and investment in green agreements on future generations; prospects for further de-globalization and its effect on climate change and nature; and intergenerational environmental consequences, including debt and polling.

On the Frontline—A bibliometric Study on Sustainability, Development, Coronaviruses, and COVID-19

Environmental Science and Pollution Research

The COVID-19 pandemic has placed the world’s population in a state of unprecedented public health and global health vulnerability. Risks to public and global health have escalated due to COVID-19 contamination. This has raised the statistics of inequity and environmental concerns. A possible outlook entails reducing the pandemic consequences by prioritizing development, biodiversity, and adaptability, offering buffer solutions. It contains vital methods for studying, comprehending, and unraveling events—examining early responses to COVID-19, sustainability, and development, relating them with overall Coronaviruses reaction. This study maps out environmental, socioeconomic, and medical/technological issues using as statistical techniques multiple correspondence analysis and validated cluster analysis. The findings encourage rapid, long-term development policy involvement to address the pandemic. The resulting crises have highlighted the necessity for the revival of health justice pol...

Lessons from the Covid-19 pandemic: sustainability is an indispensable condition of Global Health Security

Ambiente & Sociedade, 2020

Among the possible developments of the Covid-19 pandemic at the international and national levels is the advancement of the Global Health Security (GHS) agenda. On the one hand, GHS might be able to give priority to health problems on the political agenda-setting, on the other, however, it might open up space for public security actors in decision-making processes to the detriment of the power of health authorities. This article critically analyzes the concept and the progress of the GHS agenda seeking to demonstrate that there can be no security in matters of public health when sustainability in its multiple dimensions is not taken into account. At the end, sustainability has a twofold responsibility: to maintain the consistency and permanence of emergency response actions, especially with investments in public health systems, with universal access, and to minimize the structural causes of pandemics linked to the environment.