“Over by Christmas”: The impact of war-metaphors and other science-religion narratives on science communication environments during the Covid-19 crisis

Narratives are crucial for understanding the world, making decisions within it, but may also distort realities, and redirect actions in more damaging directions. This underlines their vital role in public health crisis. Studies of narrative in health crises have negatively assessed the overall impact of warfare rhetoric, judging according to discrepancies between projected and achieved outcomes. Yet the warfare narrative dominated the framing of the Covid-19 pandemic in the United Kingdom. Through a historical alignment of Christian, military and national virtues, the warfare narrative provided a guiding framework for collective response to crisis, simultaneously hoping to reassure and ‘bring the Nation together’. The narrative, however, polarised British society, accentuating divisions and exacerbating political tensions coinciding with the pandemic. This article analyses the implications and effects that Covid-19 war narratives had on public life, and what their usage tells us about effective science communication in a crisis.