On February 18, SKY News UK trumpeted that ‘Lockdown is working! COVID-19 infection rate plummets in England’. Yet, as Figure 1 shows, Sweden with voluntary social distancing guidelines experienced an earlier and faster decline of COVID deaths per capita. The other interesting feature about the figure is how the mortality curves are policy-invariant, mimicking one another regardless of policy interventions between Sweden, the UK and the EU countries. The virus infection, hospitalization and mortality curves seem to rise and fall by seasons, independent of lockdowns.

National security—in its traditional sense—is associated with the protection of the territorial integrity and sovereignty of a state, as well as its critical interests abroad. However, the lethal nature of pandemics is increasingly raising scientific awareness about their national security dimensions.