The Problem with ‘Post-’

Abstract

What is the 'new normal'? What does it mean to live in the world 'post-Covid'? These are not new questions; they are questions that have been asked-sometimes hopefully, sometimes in mourning-since 11 March 2020 when the World Health Organization (WHO) declared Covid-19 to be a pandemic. In characterising Covid-19 as a global pandemic WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus made the following remarks: 'Pandemic is not a word to use lightly or carelessly. It's a word that, if misused, can cause unreasonable fear, or unjustifiable acceptance that the fight is over, leading to unnecessary suffering and death'. 1 Words, as Ghebreyesus's statement signals, shape our orientation within the historical event. To use 'pandemic' (rather than, say, epidemic or public health emergency) instills particular moods, behaviours, and political, social and cultural responses. Over the past eight months, as this issue has come together, the language around Covid-19 has shifted. We are now ostensibly living in a 'post-Covid' world despite case numbers placing pressure on healthcare systems, numbers of fatalities continuing to climb, the emergence of new variants and the social, economic and political impacts of the pandemic being far from over. Compounding this sense of being 'after' Covid is the political rhetoric around the pandemic: Australia's political leadership in 2022 has presented a narrative of Covid-19 that lives 'in the past tense '. 2 In this context, we highlight Ghebreyesus's words from what seems like a long time ago at the outset of this issue for several reasons. First, because the questions of living in a 'post-Covid' world are ongoing, and will continue for many years to come, and historiansparticularly feminist historians-must address these questions. Secondly,Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, 'WHO Director-General's opening remarks at the media briefing on COVID-19-11 March 2020', World Health Organization, 11 March 2020int/ director-general/speeches/detail/who-director-general-s-opening-remarks-at-the-media-briefing-oncovid-19---11-march-2020. 2 Michael Toole and Brendan Crabb, 'Australia's response to COVID in the first two years was one of the best in the world. Why do we rank so poorly now?' Conversation, 28 July 2022, theconversation. com/australias-response-to-covid-in-the-first-2-years-was-one-of-the-best-in-the-world-why-do-werank-so-poorly-now-187606.