The problem is of course that the first great internationalists are microbes - they don't respect borders. And if we don't confront them in an international way also, then we are going to be horrendously vulnerable to them... If someone falls sick from COVID or its successor in any part of the world, then the whole world is in danger.

Historian Frank M. Snowden examines the deep impact of disease on human history, and explains why the current global COVID-19 outbreak was inevitable, but deeply worsened by a politics driven by nationalism and individualism, unable to address a global, collective health threat.

Frank is author of the book Epidemics and Society: From the Black Death to the Present from Yale University Press.