Description
Book SynopsisWhy does Western pandemic policy have support across the political spectrum, when its social impacts conflict with ideology on both right and left? During the pandemic, the Left has agreed that 'following the science' with hard lockdowns is the best way to preserve life; only irresponsible right-wing populists oppose them. But social science shows that while the rich have got richer, those suffering most under lockdown are the already disadvantaged: the poor, the young, and--most overlooked of all--the Global South. The UN is predicting tens of millions of deaths from hunger and warning that decades of development are being reversed. Equally, why have conservatives backed lockdowns and other major interventions, creating the big state that they usually abhor? These contradictions within the great consensus of Western pandemic response are part of a broader crisis in Western thought. Toby Green peels back the policy paradoxes to reveal irreconcilable beliefs in our societies. These deep divisions are now bursting into the open, with devastating consequences for the global poor.
Trade Review‘[The Covid Consensus] is the best hope yet of an antidote to the Covid lobotomy, performing the near impossible task of detailing … the great horrors that government lockdowns have brought to bear on populations in the Global North and South, without once betraying the kind of outrage that causes those who believe in the Covid narrative to close their ears and shut their eyes, both to fact and to feeling.’
-- Lockdown Sceptics
