An inevitable collision: Health, biology and security in times of pandemic

Abstract

For more than two and a half years now, experts and scholars around the world have been unanimous about one thing: the COVID-19 pandemic is the greatest challenge of our times. Since the SARS-CoV-2 first emerged in the Chinese province of Wuhan in December 2019, more than 560 thousand millions of confirmed cases were documented and approximately 6,3 millions of deaths were recorded throughout the world. Its extreme virulence and lethality, combined with its devastating consequences, prompted states leaders and international actors to frame the disease as a threat to their national and international security. In other words, the COVID-19 was securitized by actors in position of authority who presented and labeled the issue as an existential security threat. While the COVID-19 is not the first health-related issue to be securitized, the case of the COVID-19 revealed a security rationale that was not present in the previous securitizations. Indeed, many scientists and field experts have noted the relevance of another aspect that was brought up by the securitization of the COVID-19: the vulnerabilities of states toward biological threats as a whole, and not only infectious diseases. The COVID-19 was therefore not only presented as a security threat because of its high morbidity/mortality rates and the...