ABSTRACT
During the first phase of the crisis caused by the novel coronavirus in early 2020, as the sporadic individual cases of the resultant coronavirus disease (COVID-19) escalated into the European front of a global pandemic in March, two phrases were broadly inescapable in media coverage and political discourse. That the two were apparently mutually contradictory—even if they emerged from the same source more or less simultaneously—seemed to be particularly appropriate in times that were turbulent enough already. Both ‘We must get back to normal as soon as possible’ and ‘Nothing will ever be the same again’ struck the tone of combined urgency and reassurance that governments sought in those panic-stricken weeks and have maintained at some level ever since.
