Write an article about Covid 19.
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When we presented the early 2020 issue of the European Journal of Cultural and Political Sociology, no one comprehended what the outbreak of the novel coronavirus, COVID-19, in Wuhan province, China, would mean to the world, to Europe, to any country or any single person in the weeks to come. A couple of months later, life as we knew it fundamentally changed. The mantras of today are ‘stay at home, stay safe’ and ‘social distancing’. Not even the most critical mind working on surveillance – and on what George Orwell grasped in his ‘1984’ novel – would have imagined that almost all over the world, nation states ban individual free movement and the gathering of people, while borders are closed and aeroplanes are grounded. Normal social life and work has come to a halt. It seems the policing of populations might be the ‘only’ way to stop the deadly virus spreading further–or at least slow it down to a pace our medical systems can handle. Ulrich Beck’s ‘risk society’ appears to be taking on new forms in current times, while Simmel’s ‘psychology of the city dweller’ also seems to take on novel meaning. The effects of the pandemic on social inequality, urban life, citizenship, migration, and core-periphery relations are already becoming visible, but will be only fully comprehensible in due course. What we have to face up to is unprecedented as far as contemporary generations are concerned, and will leave heavy marks, stigma, and perhaps trauma for those who survive the virus (but also for the lucky ones who are not being physically infected).....
Geopolitically, relations appear to be changing. At the time of writing, China has sent equipment to Italy, and both Cuban and Russian doctors have flown in to support the crumbling health provisions in Europe. Did someone say European Union? Again, the EU has been slow in its reaction, not least vis-à-vis the robust propaganda machines of Moscow and Beijing, and EU member states have reproduced cleavages in their reactions that had already emerged in the 2008 financial and economic crisis – that is, between the wealthy North and economically fragile South. We might have to reconsider the notion of European solidarity, cosmopolitanism and global humanity in the years to come......