Paper short abstract:

During Covid19, UK government alternated contradictory rules: restrict socio-economic interaction to save lives lost to infection; restore the economy to save lives lost though unemployment and stress. Was this prioritization of the economy a preparedness to ‘sacrifice’ lives to the virus?

Paper long abstract:

During the Corona virus pandemic, the UK government used variously changing slogans to try and limit contagion (e.g. “Wash hands, protect the face, keep socially distant and save lives” – reduced pithily to “Hands, Face and Space”). Alongside this apparently civic/humanitarian call is a parallel government insistence on keeping the economy going. This was sometimes presented as more important to life than simply following personal safety measures: with the alternative of unemployment and associated stress seen as likely to kill more people than the virus itself. In other words, economy comes first, this being justified as in the end as reducing the incidence of disease and death. Can we therefore look at this prioritizing of the economy (in the guise of economic-human balance) as in fact an implicit if unwanted preparedness to ‘sacrifice’ lives to Covid19? Since most such lives lost will be of the elderly or infirm, is this tantamount to a “cull” of those perceived to be unproductive (too old or sick) and therefore socially dispensable?