Power, Knowledge, and Covid-19

Power, Knowledge, and Covid-19: The Making of a Scientific Orthodoxy shows, step by step, how a dominant scientific line on Covid-19 was built and defended-and what it left out.

Alex Broadbent is Professor of Philosophy at Durham University, Visiting Professor at the University of Johannesburg, and Director of the Centre for Philosophy of Epidemiology, Medicine, and Public Health. His previous books include Philosophy of Epidemiology (2013), Philosophy for Graduate Students (2016), and Philosophy of Medicine (2019), and he has also edited The Routledge Handbook of Philosophy of Public Health (2023, with Sridhar Venkatapuram) and The Oxford Handbook of Philosophy of Medicine (2025). Pieter Streicher is Research Associate at the Centre for Philosophy of Epidemiology, Medicine, and Public Health, at the University of Johannesburg and Durham University.

Introduction; 1. Scientific Orthodoxy; 2. The Politics of Method in Epidemiology; 3. Methodological Rigidity; 4. The Scientific Construction of Lockdown; 5. Scientific Dogma and Lockdown; 6. Scientific Dogma and Masks; 7. Scientific Dogma and Covid-19 Vaccines; 8. Suppression of Dissent and the Great Barrington Declaration; 9. Indirect Political Authority: Following the Science; 10. Scientific Injustice in the Covid-19 Pandemic; 11. Conclusion; References; Index.