There is much to be lost in a pandemic, with Rupert Read recently writing we have an ethical obligation to adopt the precautionary principle. But the Covid-19 story in months and years to come will be told by those who recognise what might also be gained - and act early. 

The COVID-19 pandemic has turned the UK into a post-truth and proactionary state in all but name. Here are some handy definitions of the two highlighted terms that will be useful in what follows:

As soon as the UK recognized that COVID-19 posed a serious threat, the government began to proceed on two fronts at once. The ‘first order’ battle would be a fight against the virus itself. The ‘second order’ battle would be about defining the field of play in which the fight takes place. The first is a medical war, the second a media war. The government has understood from the outset that it might fare better in the media war than the medical war. More to the point, the media war might be of greater longer term significance in that it might encompass the medical war, especially if the UK ends up developing the first vaccine for the virus.

No doubt, this is a very ‘post-truth’ way of seeing things. It does not deny the truth as such, but it does deny that the truth means much without an agreed context that reveals its significance to all concerned. This point is most easily seen in the ambiguous standing of the numbers associated with, say, coronavirus deaths, tests and ‘personal protective equipment’ available to hospital and care workers. These numbers are bandied about by both friends and foes of the government, each wishing to turn them to their own advantage.

However, the ace that is always in the government’s pocket is that the numbers themselves are indefinitely revisable. This is not because the government is pursuing some diabolical postmodernist agenda, perhaps spearheaded by Dominic Cummings.  Rather, a pandemic is nature’s post-truth playground, and the government is best positioned to track its moves. Thus, as long as the government maintains a solemn demeanour, it can depict its opponents as peddling anecdotes that are unrepresentative of the overall state of play at any given time, while still addressing some of those flagged cases that can be easily handled. Awareness of this point helps to explain the opposition Labour Party’s own strategic decision to function more as troubleshooter than backseat driver during the crisis.

In the end, a diabolical postmodernist is simply primed to capitalise on a post-truth situation that is neither of one’s own making or desire.

After all, the level of morbidity due to COVID-19 will continue to be revised retrospectively as we come to know this new virus through more and better testing, which in turn means that some earlier deaths may have been misdiagnosed and some earlier tests for the virus may not have been accurate. And as for personal protective equipment, the matter can be summed up brutally: Whether its quality and quantity have been ‘adequate’ will be known only after all the bodies have been counted. In the end, a diabolical postmodernist is simply primed to capitalise on a post-truth situation that is neither of one’s own making or desire.