The globalisation of coronavirus

Hi everybody, please watch this video:

Here are all the maps I refer to. The first shows the ancient Silk Road: this was the main trading route between Europe and Asia. Until around 1450, India and China were the centres of world economic power, and goods and people mainly traveled west along the Silk Road across Central Asia. Associated with the Silk Road was the main sea route south of Persia and Arabia across the Indian Ocean

 

This next map shows the spread of the Bubonic Plague in its worst outbreak in the late 14th Century (which went on to kill a quarter of Europe's population). Sure enough, it followed exactly the same route as the Silk Road, as traders transmitted the disease along the way, causing outbreaks along its route. 

Look at this map which shows in even greater clarity the link between outbreaks and the trading routes, and how long it took for the plague to spread. Look at the key. Why did it take so long?

Now, we're going to jump forward to present day. This next map shows the facebook connections and 

interactions. The places lit up the most are the world's most connected cities - global hubs. These are also the places that experienced major coronvirus outbreaks. 

  

As with this next map, what makes these most interesting is how the coronavirus spread from its origin in Central China. The countries first affected were, by and large, CORE countries: the most developed industrialised nations. But there's more than that - it wasn't the entire country. So, for example, it was Northern Italy affected first, not the South. Northern Italy is much more developed and INTERCONNECTED with other global hubs. This means Italians living there travel more and much more widely than Italians living in the South. As a result, coronavirus spread rapidly in outbreaks in towns in the Northern region of Lombardy. They now believe that skiing trips in Northern Italy were a source of the virus that then spread to other major cities (Madrid, London, New York). The East coast of the US was then affected - particularly New York, and then the West coast and California. 

The next group of countries affected at the SEMI-PERIPHERY countries - mainly the EMERGING economies of Brazil, India, South Africa. South Africa, for example, isn't expecting its peak of infections until July/August. Whereas with the medieval plagues which took 3-4 years to reach parts of Europe from its origins in Asia, with coronvirus it's spread around the world in 3-4 months. 

The last group of countries to be affected and experience major outbreaks are the least developed, least globalised countries in the PERIPHERY. Although the health care systems are much less advanced than those in the global CORE, they have much more time to prepare for them, and as their populations are 'younger' than the core, there is hope that they won't be affected as badly as we might normally expect. 

This map below shows travel time to major cities. The lighter the colour, the quicker it is to reach a major city. Again, the lighter the colour, the quicker coronavirus spread in that area. 

So, then on to solutions: if you're in charge of controlling coronavirus, what can you do? Close all the major airports of the world? But then goods and food can't be flown in. Close the airports to just travellers, but not freight? But if you close the airports the airlines and travel industries collapse, causing the loss of millions of jobs. Yes, but you save lives by slowing down the spread and buying yourself time. Yes, but the economy crashes and jobs are lost! Herein lies the conflict between the economic and the social. Interestingly, environmental concerns have been pushed to the margins this year - even though carbon dioxide emissions have dropped a staggering 17% since lockdowns were started. This argument runs through everything geographical - trying to balance economic concerns with social concerns and there is no perfect answer.

So to sum up, understanding coronavirus is to understand globalisation and the migration of people. You can no more stop globalisation than you can stop coronavirus, despite all the 'big talk' of some world leaders. But you can slow it down and control the speed of its spread - and to do so you are constantly juggling social and economic concerns in a time of crisis.