ABSTRACT
Recent centuries have witnessed many infectious diseases. However, the early 21st-century COVID-19 pandemic has had a devastating impact on the global health and socio-economic scenario. In just 2 years since its outbreak, it has rapidly swept across the globe and become a major concern from the richest to the poorest countries. Previous history shows that anthropogenic environmental degradation, climate change, and globalisation are among the most critical driving forces for flaring up and spreading infectious diseases, from drug-resistant tuberculosis to pandemic influenza and the recent COVID-19. Therefore, the roots of these crises must be thoroughly studied to understand how they are interlinked in the context and emergence of COVID-19. Hence, these critical issues need to be addressed by implementing certain preventive measures, laws, policies, and socio-ecological approaches during and after pandemics to prevent current and future pandemic crises, thus maintaining environmental sustainability. In this chapter, environment and globalisation are starkly juxtaposed and paralleled with COVID-19.
