ABSTRACT
As the first phase of the crisis caused by the emergence of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) in early 2020 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 maintained at some level until the end of the wave of infection caused by the Omicron variant in the first quarter of 2022. And both were true, to a greater or lesser extent, once the hyperbole was stripped away.
