The response of governments to the corona pandemic makes it clear that our current political systems are not suited to deal with global health problems. This is argued by Professor Political Geography and Geopolitics Henk van Houtum and student (now PhD researcher) Ben van Enk in an article recently published in the top medical journal BMJ.
You cannot solve a global crisis at the national level. Indeed, it is counterproductive. Yet during the covid pandemic, national governments cramped up and started hoarding mouth caps and vaccines en masse. That reaction led to rising prices (and profiteering) and huge shortages in less prosperous countries, causing a health disaster in those countries and prolonging the pandemic.
Political autoimmune disease
In other words, mainly the rich countries' reaction actually perpetuated the problem they claimed to be fighting. By focusing only on their 'own' (national) population, the virus was allowed to roam unhindered for longer and new variants developed. Variants that in turn posed a danger to the population in rich countries. So the rich countries' own-people-first defence mechanism only caused more damage in the end.
It is thus an example of a political autoimmunity as described by philosopher Jacques Derrida in 2003, and which van Henk van Houtum and Ben van Enk are now using to demonstrate the need to change course when it comes to global health policy. Their article 'The political autoimmunity of the COVID-19 response', co-authored with Annelies van Uden of Utrecht University, was recently published in the top medical journal BMJ.
In it, the researchers explain why the pandemic approach backfired. "You cannot solve global problems like climate change and pandemics on a national level," says Van Houtum. Van Enk: "What you saw happening during the covid pandemic can be compared to a city completely on fire, but only the villa neighbourhood is put out."
