Overview

This article, based on a vast experience of research and intervention by social scientists in the context of epidemics and pandemics, summarizes five relevant lessons to face the COVID-19 pandemic, drawing mainly on the experience of health emergencies linked to forms of avian influenza: focus on changes in disease ecologies, not outbreaks; understand the political economy and ecology of food systems; consider the ways of life and the conditions of equity and access of the different sectors of the population to the resources that make it possible to respond to the emergency situation; reconsider the forms of advice in public policies focusing on uncertainty and surprise; develop institutions and organisations capable of promoting adaptation, innovation and confidence in emergency preparedness.