ABSTRACT
This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book contains autoethnographic accounts from Austria, Sweden, and Australia, in which anthropologists describe their constructions of and negotiations with COVID in their lived experiences, perceptions, and practices relating to the pandemic. It deals with how stigma has created panic and affected the provision of health care when biomedical personnel refuse to attend patients with high temperatures, and community members publicly lynched one man who was considered to be a “super-spreader”—even though he did not have the disease. The chapter focuses on Germany explores health literacy and its lack, and how the plethora of “too much” information can confuse people and leave gaps in which misinformation and mistrust can spread—an example of the "prevention paradox". It explores the effects of the pandemic on Pakistan’s small-to-medium businesses and on its underdeveloped education system.
