Interpreting the Italian Response to the COVID-19 Pandemic : Patterns and Dynamics of Disaster Risk Creation

The COVID-19 “virus” in Italy, as happened elsewhere and for many other socio-natural hazards, has been confused and equated to the “risk” concept, which “veils and dissimulates the operation of a range of other underlying risk drivers” (Lavell et al., 2020) that largely contributed to the social construction and creation of this catastrophe. Disaster Risk Creation (DRC), which has been pictured as a global pandemic itself (Alcántara-Ayala et al., 2021), constitutes a solid analytical reference for framing the causes and the drivers underlying the different COVID-19 disruptive effects but also the phases of its emergency management. The present contribution reflects on the shortcomings of the Italian emergency response and first recovery attempts from the COVID-19 pandemic, all of which may provide key insights to the spatial and development planning realms that are trying to deal with the changing climate and the increasing number of recurring, cyclic slow and sudden onset catastrophic events