Dialectical Tensions of Sustainability and Health during the COVID-19 Pandemic: A Tale from Latin America

Adriana Angel,Sandra Idrovo,Lissette Marroquin-Velasquez

doi:10.3390/su13137387

Abstract

The purpose of this article is to discuss the relationship between sustainability and health in the context of the coronavirus pandemic in Latin America, the region with the second highest number of deaths due to COVID-19. After performing a dialectical analysis on mass media discourses about the pandemic, we argue that sustainability must be understood in relation to tensions such as (a) health and economy, (b) isolation and interconnectedness of health management, and (c) access to and excess of information about the pandemic. Based on this analysis, we suggest that if health is to be considered a fourth pillar of sustainability, it needs to be approached in close connection with these inseparable and irreducible tensions in order to broaden the way in which it has been approached in global sustainable development agendas and to recognize the role of individuals and communities in health issues.

Highlights

Images of clear skies in the big cities showing a significant reduction in air pollution contrast with the huge waiting lines to buy food through government subsidies and the shortage of intensive care units to treat COVID-19 patients in developing countries hospitals
Considering that health discourse has different emphasis and that health practices are inseparable from the discourses that underlie to and support them, we examine the relationship between sustainability and health by focusing on the discourses of the coronavirus in the pandemic
Since sustainability consists of a balance between three competing dimensions, we explore how tensions between these dimensions and health were presented in mediated discourses about the pandemic

Summary

Introduction

Images of clear skies in the big cities showing a significant reduction in air pollution contrast with the huge waiting lines to buy food through government subsidies and the shortage of intensive care units to treat COVID-19 patients in developing countries hospitals. The coronavirus pandemic has evolved from a public health emergency to an economic crisis that poses serious political and social challenges that threaten life as we know it. Since the virus outbreak in December 2019 in Wuhan, China, the pandemic has led politicians, scholars, and practitioners from various fields to ask questions about the effects that COVID-19 will have in globalization [1,2], immigration [3], different economic sectors [4,5] and democracy [6]. Other studies focused on trading and consumer activity during the pandemic. The coronavirus led to the study of how financial attitudes during the pandemic have impacted the retail activity of trading services [5]

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