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What are the advantages and disadvantages of globalization?
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Globalization leaves us vulnerable to infectious diseases

In a hyper-connected world, infectious diseases can spread more rapidly, increasing the likelihood of an international pandemic.
Economics Globalisation Politics

The Argument

A plethora of factors resulting from globalization can impact the spread of infectious disease. According to Brian D. Gushulak, increased migration within the past few decades has completely reshaped the world in ways we could never have foreseen.[1] He cites the movement of people between many countries as an essential factor in the spread of disease, the likelihood of transmission among people skyrocketing as we move from country to country. Several other determining effects of globalization include industrial development, increase of the food trade (which can carry all kinds of unwanted bacteria and infection), and the threat of bioterrorism.[2] The recent COVID-19 pandemic has shed new light on both the dangers and benefits of such close interconnection in the age of the Internet and social media, denoting how rapidly such a harmful and deadly disease can spread in this day and age, COVID-19's infection rate notoriously high and more transmittable than we have ever seen before.[3]

Counter arguments

Infectious diseases have been spread incredibly rapidly for thousands of years, and though globalization connects the world on an economic and social basis, the in-person, intimate contact required for contraction of the disease has not increased because of globalization. There is no evidence to suggest that advancement in industry and technology on the scale of social media serves as a disadvantage. Social media has actually helped spread awareness about the coronavirus very rapidly so that people can quickly understand the risks and stay socially isolated from one another. In this way, one could say that globalization has actually helped the slow of infectious disease. Increased migration also offers no evidential correlation to the spread of disease, and most who enter new countries are given shots and vaccines for foreign diseases upon their arrival. Based on the arguments, globalization has not increased the rapidity of the spread of disease.

Proponents

Premises

[P1] Increased migration, technological advancement, and interconnection within social media are direct results of globalization. [P2] All the results of globalization are also factors in the increased rapidity in the spread of infectious diseases like coronavirus. [P3] Therefore, globalization is bad because it directly caused increased spread of infectious disease around the world.

Rejecting the premises

[Rejecting P2] Globalization is not the only cause of these phenomena, nor is it the sole contributor toward the spread of infectious disease. Blaming the spread of disease on globalization completely disregards all other potential contributing factors and is, therefore, illogical. [Rejecting P3] Globalization does not necessarily cause the spread of infectious disease, based on the aforementioned arguments.

References

  1. https://academic.oup.com/cid/article/38/12/1742/304890
  2. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/22390054/
  3. https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/coronavirus/symptoms-causes/syc-20479963#:~:text=It's%20unclear%20exactly%20how%20contagious,%2C%20sneezes%20or%20talks.
This page was last edited on Tuesday, 3 Nov 2020 at 16:00 UTC

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