Abstract
This article examines the global response to the Covid-19 pandemic in the era of the risk society. It employs literature-based analysis and study of legal sources. The first part of the article presents the crucial role of communicating information during a pandemic and the role of WHO in the area of infectious diseases. Confidence, public trust, and public involvement are according to Urlich Beck critical for the acceptance of risk related policies. This article, through the paradigm of a pandemic of the past, (the case of the bubonic plague in Ionian islands), argues how crucial is the communication of the uncertainties, the involvement of the public and the information networks. Furthermore, it supports that during the covid-19 crisis, health risk communication and management of the crisis were not sufficient. Some of the reasons were: the unclearance of the message transmitted, limited public and community participation in the decision making process and in shaping the health policy, crisis of public confidence, inadequacy of implemented policies, e.t.c. It concludes that collective and just solution, harmonized global action, access to information, international solidarity, and the involvement of the locals are of paramount importance.
Highlights
Numerous plagues and diseases have erupted across the globe
The really serious difference between and pandemics, is the ability of a disease to move between countries at an unprecedented rate by air travel
National borders provide nο barriers to the transmission of communicable diseases [1]
Summary
The really serious difference between and pandemics, is the ability of a disease to move between countries at an unprecedented rate by air travel. Air traffic and high mobility can spread epidemic diseases at rates faster than they can be identified, especially since incubation periods before symptoms emerge, may often last many days. One would assume that the spreading of the information in this post-modern context, would manage to detect in time the spreading of a new virus. A causal disease agent was reported to WHO on 7 January by the National Health Commission of China [4]. At the start of January, epidemiologists began to receive reports from public health departments in China, which included rudimentary information about the number of new infections, hospitalizations and deaths. Why that happened and what if anything can we learn from the past?
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Free) 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a call
