HUMAN SECURITY AS A THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK INDISPENSABLE FOR ANALYSISNG THE RESPONSE TO COVID-19 PANDEMIC

COVID-19 pandemic affected millions of people worldwide and challenged the ability of national and international institutions to help suffering people and prevent others from being infected. From a theoretical point of view, this pandemic was framed as a human security crisis by officials of the United Nations, politicians, and researchers because it had a severe impact on human lives as a result of posing a threat to their health. The centrality of human beings for the concept of human security allowed the COVID-19 pandemic to be connectedto human security and thus to be subjected to the process of securitization. A further aspect that significantly contributed to establishing this correlation was the fact that pandemic had been included in the concept of human security since it gained prominence back in 1994, becoming one of its characteristic constituents. Understanding how COVID-19 pandemic had been associated with human security and what made possible for them to be related contributes to explaining the present relevancy of human security, helps clarifying thetheoretical basis of its application to this pandemic, facilitates the framing of potential future pandemics as a threat to human security and improves the use of this theoretical outlook in relation with pandemics.