THE PRECAUTIONARY PRINCIPLE AND SOCIAL DISTANCING MEASURES ON COVID-19 PANDEMIC UNDER THE CONCEPT OF RISK IN NIKLAS LUHMANN

The pandemic caused by the new Sars-CoV-2 coronavirus shook the structures of world society in 2020. In addition to the extreme severity of the virus as a cause of easily transmissible pathology, all countries on the planet had to deal with a new reality, a new normal, imposed by the social distancing measures, which aimed to slow down the rate of contamination and avoid strangulation of the hospital care network. This scenario brought to light old problems, ranging from inequality, to the deficient public health structure in most countries and to the exhaustion of the capitalist model as we know it. This work, however, is specifically concerned with measures of social distancing carried out on an increasing scale since the emergence of the new coronavirus and its classification as a pandemic. The analysis of such measures is made from the hypothetical-deductive method, through exploratory bibliographic research that gathers data about the environmental principle of precaution, to then position it within the context of Niklas Luhmann's theory of social systems, notably the theory of resulting risk. Thus, it seeks to establish the precautionary principle as an asset to overcome part of the challenges brought by hypercomplex modernity, especially those related to its risks.