Geopolitics of Covid-19: global challenge at national borders

The current Covid-19 pandemic seems to confirm that glocalism, a phenomenon that theorizes a close correlation between the sphere of the local and the global, is now the new normal. The rapid spread of the virus seems to show how the international order, focused on borders and political-territorial spheres, is currently struggling to manage complex problems caused by factors such as innovation and the mobility of people, goods and information. In a short space of time, the virus spread quickly from the market in the Chinese metropolis of Wuhan to the rest of the world, thanks to the infection being spread from person to person. To this global change, states have responded with national solutions. The perception that the risks caused by the spread of the virus could undermine national security and sovereignty has led most states to isolate themselves by refraining from multilateral cooperation. At the peak of the pandemic, contrary to the instructions of the World Health Organization, more than one hundred and thirty countries closed borders or imposed strict border controls and banned from entering a selection of citizens from the outbreak areas of contagion. These "cures" are often worse than the disease. The international health emergency seems to have accelerated the beginning of a new glocal era, based on a close correlation between the local and the global sphere. This article aims to analyse the causes, consequences and possible geopolitical scenarios of this phenomenon.