Using zemiology as a means to make sense of responses to the Covid-19 pandemic

Abstract

To demonstrate the usefulness of a social harm perspective, the recent ways in which zemiology has been mobilised to make sense of Covid-19 will be explored. The Covid-19 pandemic delivered an unprecedented period of extreme sacrifice. To protect societies vulnerable and preserve life restrictions sacrificing our cultural freedoms, unseen since World War 2, started in March 2020 and were implemented in intensifying levels (Briggs et al., 2021). Boris Johnson’s government imposed social harm by delaying appropriate responses, evasion, complications and lies in disproportion to the harms of the virus and its broader effects within marginalised sections of society. Simultaneously capitalising upon features of it as a foundation of political, financial and economic gain (Canning and Tombs, 2021). Is the public health approach justified to protect society from a specific harm when it causes many other exacerbated harms (Ahearne and Freudenthal, 2021)?