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Short abstract:

What constitutes “real time” data in an epidemic? Based on expert interviews I argue that it is a contingent actualization of the present that opens it up as a space of intervention. Therein “real time” is not simply an unreachable ideal but a reflection on the extensibility of the present.

Long abstract:

The term “epidemic situation” has two meanings: First, as in the phrase “do we have a situation?”, it denotes the presence of an emergency, in this case an infectious threat to public health. In this meaning the whole duration of the health emergency surrounding Covid-19 is “a situation”. At the same time, the term also denotes a more punctualized representation of the occurrence of infectious disease or the spread of a pathogen within a certain space at a given time, that is, yesterday’s situation may not be today’s. While the first meaning broadly activates emergency governance technologies and their associated knowledge practices, the second meaning works towards enacting the present situation as an epistemic object within those practices. Within this project of capturing, assessing, and representing the given epidemic situation the notion of “real time” data takes center stage. Drawing on interviews with public health officials and epidemic intelligence experts, in this paper I examine what constitutes “real time” situational data in a public health emergency. Adapting Luhmann’s (1976) notion of “present pasts” and “present futures”, I argue that the epidemic situation enacts a present present, that is a contingent actualization of the present that opens it up as a space of intervention. Furthermore, I argue that “real time” is not simply an unreachable ideal forever in conflict with the temporal realities of disease and data management but a reflection on the extensibility of the present, that is, how long the representation remains “present enough”.