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This paper develops the notion of "more-than-viral" geographies of the covid-19 pandemic. It introduces a set of commentaries on the pandemic in the Eurasian region and its links with the rest of the globe. Taking "more-than-human" perspectives in Human Geography as an inspiration, it develops ways of analyzing the covid-19 pandemic as a "more-than-viral" phenomenon in which human and viral agencies are entangled. In this Introduction to the special issue, we focus on three key intertwined sets of processes that run through this volume, and which both shape, and are being radically reshaped by, the pandemic: interconnections, inequalities, and the geopolitics of disease. Each of these inter-related processes is developed in various ways by the commentaries which make up the special issue. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Three months into the Covid-19 crisis, lockdown has become a global response to the pandemic. Why have so many countries resorted to lockdown? How is it being implemented in different places? Why have some places had more success with lockdowns and others not? What does the effectiveness of lockdowns tell us about the local institutions entrusted with enforcing them? This paper compares how lockdown orders have been implemented in China, Italy, and the U.S. The analysis points to two major factors that have shaped the enforcement: tensions between national and local governments, and the strength of local territorial institutions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The recent global spread of COVID-19 alongside a plethora of other growing phenomena of the Anthropocene increasingly affected by human activity – fires, flooding, droughts – urgently invites a reconsideration of the concepts of epidemics and pandemics. To date however, research into pandemics has focused almost entirely on biomedical aspects such as rate of contagion, origin of the offending organism, and lethality. This article seeks to suggest that whilst these foci appear logical and necessary, research must be expanded to include pandemic under the Foucauldian canon of biopower. Whilst socio-political geographies of power and control have been neglected hitherto, not only is there a case for considering epidemics/pandemics as anthropogenic epiphenomena, the importance of human socio-political dispositifs, cultures, and transport networks of consumption is sufficiently important to both the origins and spread of biomedical illness, that they merit a different and more inclusive appellation, anthropandemic. This article outlines why this might be so and deploys relevant methods of analysis such as biopower and ANT to suggest ways in which a holistic research methodology might be developed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Russia, Ukraine and Belarus are good comparators sharing a common Soviet past, similar cultures and religions, while in the COVID-19 crisis they have pursued quite different policies. Belarus has denied the pandemic and undertaken no measures. Russia played down the epidemic for a long time and then undertook half-hearted and incoherent measures. Ukraine feared the virus and carried out an early and strict quarantine in a centralized policy. While testing has been sparse until recently and death tolls remain uncertain, Belarus and Russia appear to have done poorly in terms of health, while Ukraine has so far done much better. It is too early to judge the economic outcomes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]