This essay, on how responses to pandemics are shaped by more than medical needs, was my Observer column this week. (The column included also a short piece on when Bonnie met Lozza.) It was published on 2 February 2020, under the headline ‘Locked-down Wuhan and why we always overplay the threat of the new’. ‘A major outbreak of novel, fatal epidemic disease can quickly be followed… by plagues of fear, panic, suspicion and stigma.’ So wrote the sociologist Philip Strong in […]

Categories: Politics, Science & Technology • Tags: coronavirus, culture of fear, ebola, epidemics, h1n1, pandemics, philip strong, quarantine, racism, sars, wuhan