Riskdemic

COVID‐19 was undoubtedly an exceptional global event, locking billions of people in their homes, leaving them out of work or shut out of schools and public offices, and causing hospital systems in small and large cities alike to collapse. This health crisis is one of many global shocks we have experienced recently, following on from the 9/11 terrorist attacks and the 2008 financial and economic crisis, and one of the side effects of living in a global society that we need to learn to accommodate ourselves to in a stable way. The pandemic has radicalized tensions already present in the background of our society: unresolved issues such as the relationship with otherness, the illusion of freedom and control, the (sub)culture of surveillance, vulnerability, and lack of risk. Some of the pillars of social life and the foundations of our ontological security have collapsed. With the coronavirus in circulation, suddenly the world no longer seems to be a safe reality endowed with meaning, continuity, and stability, but a place of “riskdemic.”