The coronavirus caught a great majority of people off guard with its speed of dissemination and its ratio of killing people around the world. Warnings of many experts and intelligence about the emergence of such nontraditional threats to international security were not taken seriously.

Social scientists, think tank experts and policymakers are trying to grasp how the coronavirus pandemic and the transformations that may occur in its aftermath will influence life all around the world. Medical experts and scientists in various disciplines of natural sciences are trying to find a remedy for the novel coronavirus. In particular, the medical staff who are struggling ceaselessly to save people’s lives in overcrowded hospitals are the new heroes of our time. They are currently at the front lines of the struggle against COVID-19; however, once the virus' spread is brought under control, the focus will shift to the more complicated consequences of the pandemic. There will be a whole new research agenda for social scientists and policy researchers.

Coming to terms with the coronavirus as a common, long-term threat, fresh questions rush to one’s head: Could the global pandemic reduce violence in the international arena? Could it promote solidarity rather than a great power competition? Although nations formulated their initial response at the national level, won’t they turn to global cooperation against future pandemics? Could this "global consciousness," which emerged amid the ongoing outbreak, lead the world toward solidarity rather than inequality?

The coronavirus has established its hegemony over daily life. No decision can be made, and no story reported, without mentioning COVID-19. Experts urge people around the world to prepare for the possibility of a protracted lockdown, warning that the pandemic’s second and third waves are still looming. Looking at a photograph, one cannot help but immediately check whether everyone complies with the rule of social distancing.

For many, one would assume the U.S. was the country best prepared for a pandemic like that of the coronavirus. As the global superpower, possible threats posed against it are expected to be well studied and researched. Indeed, they have been. For the last 20 years, the potential impact of a contagious disease on national security has been the subject of various intelligence and security assessments.

The presidential government system that was adopted by Turkey in June 2018 under the leadership of President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan is providing significant advantages nowadays to the Ministry of Health’s fight against the coronavirus. It has been clearly seen by now how fast the system functions and allows for quick decision-making, and how effective a competent professional recruited from within the health sector can be during a critical period.

There is an ongoing global debate about whether the coronavirus outbreak will end up changing the world. Scholars have offered theories, scenarios and projections about the possible transformative impact of this pandemic on the international system, global economy, social rules and norms, domestic politics of countries and state-society relations around the world.

The coronavirus pandemic is likely to bring many changes in the world, and nations should start getting ready for them

In the midterm and long term, states will be forced to generate policies to adapt to new security and economic balances in post-COVID-19 period

Neo-isolationism is among the expectations for U.S. rhetoric in the aftermath of the coronavirus pandemic and this can melt its frozen ties with Turkey

Global cases of the coronavirus surpassed 1 million last week. Hardly anyone will be surprised if 2 million people are infected in a week’s time. With the exception of China, the coronavirus outbreak has not reached its peak in any country. Although the high mortality rate in Italy and Spain remains a cause for serious concern, governments around the world are slowly getting over the initial panic. Instead of seizing each other’s medical supplies, they are looking to cooperate.

Conventional wisdom dictates that the coronavirus will radically alter our lives. Experts predict that radical changes will occur in a range of areas, including the questioning of alliances, the strengthening of the state and expedited digitalization.

There is no clear and credible scientific data available yet to indicate when the coronavirus will end. There are some projections and more speculations about it. For some, it may wind down by the end of summer; for others it will end only to make a stronger comeback in fall. In the last two months, different people from the U.S. administration have provided a different set of projections. U.S. President Donald Trump, who once said, “It’s going to disappear. One day, it’s like a miracle, it will disappear” seems to have adopted a cautious perspective about a potential timeline. He now believes the crisis may continue until the end of summer.

The recent death toll from the coronavirus across Europe is heartbreaking. The unpreparedness and insufficiency of health systems have shown us that the first world has invested more in financial systems, entertainment, stadiums, hotels and tourism than health care, as it is expensive and provides little returns. This pandemic has revealed this brutal reality at the expense of people’s lives. Sadly, there is little data to show if or how much the virus has spread in war-torn areas, such as Gaza, Syria or Yemen. The countries engaged in the Syrian civil war have no capacity to help the people living in camps amid very unhygienic conditions. We all know that the Syrian regime and its allies repeatedly targeted hospitals in opposition-held areas and, as the biggest-yet humanitarian tragedy of this century, the Syrian civil war could become a humanitarian disaster with the addition of the pandemic.

The recent COVID-19 pandemic started as a global health crisis, but it immediately spread to and started to influence the other domains of life all over the world. The crisis directly affected economies across the globe. Some analysts argue that the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the global economy may be deeper and more widespread than the impact of the Great Depression of the 1930s. Like all global economic crises, the COVID-19 crisis will also have a significant impact on the global power configuration. A new international system may emerge, or the existing system may be revised entirely because of the direct and indirect consequences of the recent crisis.

The G-20 videoconference offers few concrete steps – despite saying big words like 'whatever it takes' to combat virus

Since the beginning of the coronavirus outbreak, there has been a major debate among the scholars and observers of international politics about the potential impact of this pandemic on the international system. The debate focuses on the outbreak and precautions that nations took to stop the spread of it.