ABSTRACT
Public health policy during the pandemic starts with the UK government's emblematic instruction: “stay at home — protect the NHS — save lives”. So does its analysis. Invariably, state efforts were aimed to “protect the NHS” rather than “save lives” — indeed the effort to protect the NHS cost lives. Protecting the NHS occurred against the backdrop of its prolonged debilitation by a neoliberal state that treats public health as an unproductive cost that must be reduced. The effort failed: the NHS was overwhelmed, for attempts to bolster it were inadequate and undermined by the urgency to return to “normality”. Far from denoting the UK as a peculiar case, this public health policy is common to countries across Europe. It comprises hesitation to lockdown, promptness to lift it, rationing of health care, underlying weakness of health systems, and their overwhelming. Further, the efforts to conceal NHS failures during the pandemic show that the real objective was not to “protect the NHS”, but to protect its image. Biosecurity, then, is the spectacle of public health: the amplified image of public health when public health is no more.
