A ‘Covid-19 case’ is an individual who has received a positive result from a diagnostic test for the presence of the SARS-CoV2 virus in the body. When the WHO’s director, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, in his ‘simple message to all the nations’ on 16 March 2020, exhorted countries everywhere to ‘test, test, test’ for Covid-19, he omitted to mention that such testing is far from being an unproblematic production of ‘scientific facts’ (Ghebreyesus, 2020). This is puzzling, since it is far from being obvious what should count as a ‘case of Covid-19’, and how such cases should be made visible.
It seldom extended to questioning the data used to legitimate specific interventions. However, such criticism was usually focused on the perceived failings of the proposed interventions – too much, too little, mistaken targets, the wrong priorities. A few months later, sanitary policies were increasingly criticized and contested. In early spring, during the first frightening phase of the pandemic, there was a relative consensus in Europe and North America about the necessity of stringent containment measures. These data are used to shape public policies.
WHO and the Johns Hopkins coronavirus resource provide information on the daily number of Covid-19 cases and deaths worldwide, while national media supply details on the dynamics of the pandemic in each state, region and city. We are incessantly flooded with data on the evolution of the Covid-19 pandemic. Tests for Covid-19 and the politics of big numbers