Liisa Lähteenmäki is in the final year of her TIAS post-doctoral fellowship. Here she offers some whimsical reflections on the bypassing of social realities when contemplating the Covid-19 outbreak.
During the summer, the corona pandemic almost obeyed “the Trumpian wet dream” of disappearing in Finland – the entire country had only a few new cases and no further deaths occurred. In the fall, as universities, schools, play-schools and day-care centres started to open their doors for yet another semester, concern over the second wave of Covid-19 mounted as new cases were confirmed at an accelerating speed and both local health-care specialists in the Turku area and the national health officials cautioned about a possible second wave of the epidemic.
During the pandemic, there has been a lot of discussion of the risk and manner of contagion, about safe distancing, washing of hands and sneezing properly. A lot of the information and discussion has revolved around epidemiological issues, something which is of course self-evident. But as a sociologist it seems to me this epidemiological “takeover” of public discourse has somewhat distracted us from noticing the cultural and social factors in the spread – or rather in the attempted prevention – of the disease. I mean, the virus is the same everywhere, but social reality is not. Let me clarify a bit.
