Coronavirus, Brexit, and Threats to Health Security

Beginning with reports of several cases of pneumonia on 31 December 2019 by health authorities in Wuhan, China, coronavirus (2019-nCoV) spread to Europe and the UK. One recent UK case involved a suspected so-called ‘superspreader’, who contracted the virus in Singapore, and passed it onto other Britons at a chalet in the French Alps, before returning to the UK.

All this took place just as the UK was leaving the EU. The spread of the coronavirus to the UK underlines the gaps and flawed ideology in the government’s stance on the future relationship(s) with our closest European neighbours, who remain part of the EU and its highly integrated health protection structures.

Here, I build on my recent work with others to review how that system operates and explain how and why the government’s stance threatens to undermine future health security. I pay particular attention to existing arrangements for European countries that are not in the EU, and that therefore have in place looser cooperation with its structures than EU member states.

It is imperative that the government revises its stance in negotiations on the future relationship(s) to reduce the scope for fragmentation in the current system of pan-European cooperation, thus better protecting the UK and, indeed, Europe as a whole.

This remains unlikely while the UK’s position is underpinned by a particular and limited understanding of the exercise of sovereignty as ‘taking back control’. This conflicts with the understanding of sovereignty within the EU’s health protection system – mirroring the EU’s constitutional legal order – where it is more a resource to be pooled and shared through common standards and decision-making mechanisms.