As nations across the world close off their borders to combat the spread of the novel coronavirus, it is possible to see a shift in geopolitics and a potential rise in nationalism.
David S. Jones, a professor of the culture of medicine at Harvard University, explained that the notion of "blame" in pandemics is a common tactic for governments to exploit divisions of religion, race, ethnicity, class, or gender identity.
For instance, what we're seeing now with President Donald Trump calling COVID-19 the "Chinese virus" could have lasting discriminatory ramifications toward Asian-Americans.
"In terms of geopolitics, Trump has been wanting to hurt or punish China from the outset, so in that sense this is his dream come true," Jones told Business Insider. "You see that even more dramatically in other ways ... I mean he's finally gotten the immigration policy of his dreams by closing the Mexican border."
This mirrors the way the US has responded to epidemic disease throughout history, Jones said. In the past, Cholera was blamed on Irish immigrants, the plague was blamed on Chinese immigrants, and waves of tuberculosis have been blamed on Mexican immigrants.
"With every country closing its borders, there's a risk that if any kind of unification does happen, it will just be at the national level. At the end of this, the English will say 'we rallied and we did this on our own,' and the French will say the same thing, and the Italians will say the same thing … so I think nationalism could be an outcome," Jones said.
"How soon after the pandemic will the EU reopen its borders? The EU had been skating on thin-ice for a while. How quickly will Trump reopen the Mexican border? I suspect that's not high on his priority list in getting things back to normal when this ends."
But at this stage, Jones said it's hard to say whether or not this pandemic will unify or divide the global community.
"I imagine the best case scenario that will bring people together is that whether we're black, white, Hispanic, or anything else, we are united in our susceptibility in this new virus," he said.
"It is clear that collective action at the moment is our only hope."