Ancient Methods for a Modern Pandemic

There is nothing new about face coverings, social distancing, and quarantines regarding pandemics. These ancient public health measures have ancient consequences, such as stigma. COVID-19 was a globalization pandemic that security experts warned about as early as 2004. It derailed the global economy and gave great importance to borders, national identity, citizenship, and vaccination status. The chapter introduces and highlights the main challenges of division and exclusion from the pandemic and how some jurisdictions took enormous pride in aiming for the Zero-COVID-19 approach, but at what cost and to whom? The chapter introduces the term rolling stigma and the Zero-COVID-19 approach. It lays out the book’s main arguments, explaining what viruses are and how they are deeply connected to social determinants of health and geographies of nationalism. This underlines the negative consequences of pandemic management approaches on stigma, making the audience feel the gravity of the situation.