In this ‘Thinking Out Loud’ episode, Katrien Devolder (philosophy, Oxford) interviews Erica Charters, Professor of the Global History of Medicine at the University of Oxford about how we know, or decide, when the covid-19 pandemic ends. Professor Charters explains why the end as well as the beginning of a pandemic are murky, and what past pandemics can and can’t teach us.
Video Interview: Prof Erica Charters on when does (or did) the Covid-19 pandemic end?
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At least for a while let us think not what is covid but what covid says about us.
The shape of pandemic is not derived from covid itself. The shape of pandemic is derived from our post-modern society characteristics.
At lot of measures could not be performed without internet. So the technological development is the base for our pandemic reaction (how come that just the developed West countries are mostly influenced by covid?).
But the bacic reason of the pandemic measures is our mental status. This status is for safety, not for freedom. That is why we allowed the politicians to limit seriously our rights. Three decades before such measures could not be possible.
The politicians simply would not dare to imlement them.
And that is why the shapes of pandemic are “murky”. Zygmunt Bauman would say “liquid”. Because according to Bauman our society is liquied, by the other words with unclear boundaries. It is not clear who is rich or poor. And it is not
clear who is healthy and who is sick.
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