Thinking in a Pandemic:
The Crisis of Science and Policy in the Age of COVID-19
Nearly a year after the first cases of COVID-19 were detected in late 2019, the brutal toll of the coronavirus pandemic continues to rise. The result has been not just a crisis of public health but also a crisis of public reason. What do we know, and how should we act? From masks to models and from data to drugs, the novel coronavirus has prompted a high-stakes dispute about ideas: which evidence counts, which arguments succeed, and which interventions matter.
The essays in this volume—from leading physicians and epidemiologists, historians and social scientists, anthropologists and philosophers—explore this meeting place of science and society head on. Combining historical reflection with careful argumentation, the contributors provide a lucid and essential guide to the greatest public debate of our time. Together they make clear that the challenge of COVID-19 has always been both scientific and social.
Editor’s Note
PANDEMIC HISTORY
We should be wary of simplistic uses of history, but we can learn from the logic of social responses.
Crisis management only blurs ever more the boundary between politics and technical expertise.
History shows that outbreaks rarely have tidy conclusions.
PANDEMIC PHILOSOPHY
COVID-19 has revealed a contest between two competing philosophies of scientific knowledge. To manage the crisis, we must draw on both.
For the sake of both science and action in the COVID-19 pandemic, we need collaboration among specialists, not sects.
PANDEMIC POLICY
The UK government’s ultra-cautious approach to “evidence-based” policy has helped cast doubt on public health interventions. The definition of good medical and public health practice must be urgently updated.
