The Covid Consensus: The New Politics of Global Inequality

by Toby Green

Why 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 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.

Genres: Politics, Nonfiction, Health, Science, Medicine, History

288 pages, Kindle Edition

Published July 1, 2021

About the author

Toby Green is the author of five previous works of non-fiction, and his work has been translated into ten languages. He teaches the history and culture of Portuguese-speaking Africa at King’s College London.

Reviews

[Iain Hamill · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great book, and very timely as our fearless leaders fall over themselves once again to "follow [some of] the science". Widens the discussion nicely to more of the variables that should have been on the charts since Day 1 (economic cost, mental health cost, opportunity cost, inequality cost, etc etc), and across more of the geography that should have been considered too as part of the global 'pandemic' response.

[Alper Çuğun]

I haven’t read this but from hearing the authors’ speak, this seems mostly like a book to cater to the COVID truthers on the horseshoe left. Can anybody confirm?

Oh found it already, of course this book is garbage: http://averypublicsociologist.blogspo...

[Sarah · Rating 1 out of 5]

This book is almost nothing more than repackaged right-wing conspiracy theory - it is tripe. No person who calls themselves a leftist should take this book seriously. Buckle in, because this leftist is angry and a little bit sad.

At face value, there are many things that undoubtedly appeal to leftists in this dense tome: discussions of power structures, authoritarian capitalism, colonialism, the global poor, Western nanny-states. The huge issue is that these things are critiqued with right-wing arguments. The authors repeatedly assure you that they are not conspiratorial as they cite nearly every bit of information they throw at you. Did you want to look up their citation in text? You'll have to go online and look at each one. In Chapter 3, I caught them citing a book by a known anti-vaxxer Erin Olszewski, propping her up as an expert on early hospital Covid response. "We're not experts, we are just pointing out weird things", was a very common sentiment in this book, which, is incredibly right-wing-coded!

This book is huge and to debunk it would take so much time. I will focus on a few things of interest to me.

1) Risk is OK/Downplaying the Effects of Covid:
The authors tell us a lot that we shouldn't be afraid of Covid. What really counts is the quality of our life (page 12) and it is only a harmful illness to the elderly and those with pre-existing illnesses (page 13, page 72). It's not harmful to kids (page 182), it's basically a seasonal flu (page 81), and not unprecedented at all (page 65). Being a good citizen is about living with risk (page 13).

Except...most of this isn't true. We have plenty of research demonstrating the harms of Covid to all bodies.
- It is harmful to kids: https://publications.aap.org/pediatri...
- It's definitely not seasonal like the flu if we think about the Covid wave that happened in summer 2024: https://www.cnn.com/2024/08/16/health...
- It impacts the quality of lives globally! https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2023...

2) Economic Health
The authors - and I agree with them here - talk about how the pandemic had a disproportionate effect on the working class and global poor. The authors then go on to connect mental health issues and riots by the working class as symptoms of the pandemic. This is where I diverge from them because if people had not been subjected to survival capitalism and had had their needs taken care of, this would not have been the effect. They, however, blame many things on the pandemic and how it was mishandled rather than their obvious target.

3) Right-Wing & Right-Wing Adjacent Talking Points
In a book offering a critique "from the left" would you expect to see the following points?
-People changed their opinion on something in science - that's suspicious! (Chapter 2)
-Covid death counts and test numbers were inflated by hospitals counting anyone who was positive! (Chapter 3)
-Hydroxychloroquine was only hated because of Trump. It was discredited before its time! (I'm dropping this relevant link here: https://www.science.org/content/artic...) (Chapter 4)
-The vaccines were not developed with safety in mind. (Chapter 4)
-Vaccine mandates and passports were the absolute worst thing ever. (Chapter 4)
-Masks don't really work. (page 432)

4) Lockdowns Didn't Work Because Indoors
They critique the announcement of Covid transmission as being by aerosol as coming very late (I agree) but then make fun of lockdowns sticking people indoors to breathe each other's aerosols. Hello, ventilation and masks? When we learned our water supply was dirty, we built systems to clean water.

5) Emotional Language & Lack of Empathy
I'm sure they would refer to me as a "Zero Covid zealot" who drunk the "corona Kool-aid". Rhetoric like this demonstrates to me that their arguments aren't completely coming from a standpoint of reason and empathy.

They also promote the Great Barrington Declaration (the idea that the pandemic should have allowed 'healthy' people to live normally while protecting the vulnerable). As someone who is interested in disability rights, the GBD is just the status quo. Vulnerable people have long carried the 'healthy' or 'pre-disabled' on their backs, allowing those who fall into those nebulous categories to pretend like life is okay. Now, the pandemic is actually being run like the GBD and the burden of care falls completely upon people who are still taking precautions. It is a horrible outcome. I wonder if the authors would say that it was a necessary sacrifice. They do, after all, minimize the deaths of people who died from Covid in their introduction.

Conclusion:
The authors conclude fatalistically that "the virus will spread". They critique the left as being pessimistic, but all I can gather from their writing is how pessimistic they are. They dislike the world and the problems in it, but have no real vision for how anything could be better.

I envision the world I want to live in every day and I structure my actions to bring about that world piece by piece in small ways. I don't want people to be sick. I don't want people to feel burdened by capitalism. I don't want anyone "vulnerable" or "not vulnerable" to have to die unnecessarily. I envision a radical future. Caring about Covid and its effects on my future and on the futures of those globally is part of my leftist philosophy. If you are like me, this book is definitely not for you.

[Alan MacPherson · Rating 5 out of 5]

A must read to understand the covid response

Written clearly , honestly , analytically yet balanced. Maybe more needed on the science of face masks and also the science of vaccines and covid variants.

[Em Boltz · Rating 4 out of 5]

what i most loved was this books assessment of the impact of the pandemic on the global south. i would have even enjoyed the author delving further into the abject living conditions. as another reviewer stated, i would have enjoyed more information on different variants and on mask mandates.

[Peter · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is an essential read for anyone who wants (which we should all do!) to understand the effects of Covid, particularly on the global poor. It's very definitely worth reading!

[Voyt · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is meticulously supported and cogently argued pandemic must-read, essential reading for those who failed to notice how pandemic policies were destroying the vulnerable groups for whom they claimed to advocate.

I also recommend 'The Covid Consensus' to anyone who wants to make sense of the crazy and completely unprecedented pandemic response, its global repercussions, and potential future impacts.

'The Covid Consensus' provides by far the most coherent and thoroughly supported account of what the global pandemic response was, in addition to an incisive analysis of its impacts on various populations.

This is an enormous accomplishment, and an astonishing feat of research and information synthesis. The 100 pages of endnotes, available free online, in themselves constitute a rich resource for researchers of virtually every aspect of the Covid era.

[George · Rating 5 out of 5]

I want to write a longer review eventually, but all I'll say for now is: holy crap this book was good. Can't recommend it enough.