When many countries were on their way to economic recovery after the impact of the 2008-2015 crisis, the onset of a new socioeconomic crisis foretells a future of considerable difficulty for the world’s economies and societies. The pandemic caused by SARS-COV-19 has has devastating effect on productive capacity, employment, the viability of thousands of companies and the welfare state itself. This effect has been particulary acute in the health system, which has been put to the test continuously, and it is clear that it needs to be reinforced against threats of a biological nature. Social behaviours, the essence of societies, have had an impact on the way politics is done and have strained international relations as a result of border closures and the race to find an effective vaccination that can be produced and distributed efficiently. As far as legal issues concerned, countries have had to cope with new situations that have required legal adjustments and the enactment of new laws affecting the economy and mobility. The new legal framework and the economic crisis has also forced the business world to rethink how to it approaches such varied issues as customer relations and the search for new leadership models. Nevertheless, despite the pandemic, the systemic structures of societies have withstood the battering by a situation alien to the generations living in the developed countries since health emergencies are frequent in other parts of the globe. This also reveals an ethnocentric gaze, wich ignores the impact of the biological threats that much of the planet has to put up with without the necessary or sufficient health resources.