Question

How should we understand the relationship between nationalism nd covid 19

Answer 1

Explanation:

With this understanding of nationalism, I return to the relationship between nationalism and COVID‐19. I suggest that there are at least three major impacts to explore. First, early indicators suggest that there is a direct impact of populist nationalism on the public health, infection rates and mortality rates of COVID‐19. As I write this, several of the countries in the world with the highest COVID‐19 infection rates are led by populist nationalist leaders—including the United States, Brazil and the United Kingdom. The United States alone is responsible for over a quarter each of COVID‐19 infections and deaths globally, although the US population represents only 4.25% of the global population

One reason is that populist nationalists' attacks on the “corrupt elite” have gone well beyond critiques of political leaders and opponents to include other “elite” experts, academics and scientists, as evidenced by a rejection of climate science and global environmental agreements, for example. Undermining and delegitimizing scientific expertise and global cooperation and information sharing makes it significantly more difficult to convince the public of the benefits of shelter in place orders or practices to reduce the spread of the disease. In the case of COVID‐19, populist nationalist leaders are thus more likely than other national leaders to reject scientists' advice, attack global organizations like WHO, promote scientifically unproven and potentially harmful treatments for COVID‐19 and reject scientifically proven practices like wearing masks in public. Populist nationalist anti‐elite and anti‐science sentiments have undoubtedly led to higher COVID‐19 infection and mortality rates as a result.