COVID‐19: what is the disaster?

The COVID‐19 pandemic conforms to key baseline conclusions which have emerged from disaster anthropology over past decades. First, that natural disasters rarely exist, because disasters are social, arising from a combination of hazard and vulnerability, with vulnerability as the causative factor. Second, that the disaster occurs at multiple levels simultaneously, with responses to a hazard exposing as many vulnerability problems as the original hazard.

The author highlights among others that Ppart of pandemic planning and dealing with a pandemic disaster is to incorporate immediately the disastrous aspects brought by lockdowns. None of this knowledge is new. It was all available long before the virus appeared at the end of 2019, yet once again we witness the failure to use what we know to prevent disasters.