The COVID-19 pandemic marked a dramatic turning point in history, rapidly turning from a health emergency into a deep socio-economic recession. Restrictions placed by governments all over the world to prevent the spreading of the virus caused the shut down of many commercial activities and institutions, with devastating consequences on employment and people’s wellbeing, affecting all, albeit diverse, economic sectors. The epidemic is also one of the various factors that pushed nations to confront the hidden fragilities brought on by globalization, among which interdependencies. Indeed, since the last half of the 20th century the increasing trend of firms relocating steps of their supply chain abroad has ensured the birth of what literature refers to as Global Value Chains, which contributed to the amplification of the pandemics’ shocks.