Suppressing the Crisis: Moral Panics, Emerging Infectious Diseases, and the COVID-19 Conjuncture

Abstract

Background: The conjunctural moment of COVID-19 provides a window of opportunity to glean insights into the relationship between moral panics and emerging infectious disease narratives. Analysis: Using Penelope Ironstone’s 2020 essay on COVID-19 in keywords as a starting point, this article critically reflects on the ways that progressive social interests were unable to gain an upper hand in the process of narrating and defining the contradictions that were condensed in the crisis spurred by COVID-19. Conclusions and implications: The article extends Ironstone’s critique by explaining how COVID-19 keywords were expressed through a dominant pandemic narrative that discouraged as much as it incited moral panic by framing the preferred response to the crisis in terms of individualized coping strategies promising relative security from infection.