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The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
Entertainment
Mark Honigsbaum

The Fatal Breath: Covid-19 and Society in Britain by David Vincent review – a moving account of the plague of our times

The national Covid memorial wall on London’s Albert Embankment. Each heart represents a person who died in the UK from the coronavirus
The national Covid memorial wall on London’s Albert Embankment. Each heart represents a person who died in the UK from the coronavirus. Photograph: Jill Mead/The Guardian

Covid-19 is the best documented pandemic in history. From the moment it became clear that the coronavirus would trigger a series of global lockdowns, every twist and turn in the pandemic has been chronicled in blogs, diaries and by print and digital media.

The desire to historicise the event has been just as urgent. As early as March 2020, the Pulitzer prize-winning writer Thomas Friedman declared that Covid-19 was “our new historical divide” and predicted that henceforth there would be “BC”, the time Before Corona, and “AC”, the time After Corona.

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