In 2004, SARS had been called “the first pandemic of the 21st century” ( LeDuc and Barry, 2004) as it had spread across 29 countries, infected 8,098 people over the course of 8 months, and killed 774 (WHO) just a month after the first COVID-19 confirmed case, the total global case count had surpassed that of SARS. Although national and international public health officials and practitioners thought that they were confronted with what at first seemed to be a déjà vu scenario, the speed and volume of the coronavirus contagion rate eventually made it clear that COVID-19 was a much more severe infectious disease than SARS.
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For instance, how to distinguish the diagnosis from a seasonal flu, what the mortality rate and the incubation period were, what the best way to treat patients was, and how medical personnel and the most vulnerable people in society could be best protected ( Fidler, 2004, p. Much of the same questions about the SARS-associated coronavirus (SARS-CoV) that had puzzled scientists 17 years before reemerged. The COVID-19 virus was not the first time that the causative agent behind SARS-a novel kind of coronavirus-was identified in human populations the SARS epidemic of 2002–2003 had preceded it ( Drosten et al., 2003 Ksiazek et al., 2003). The article also presents a comprehensive “timeline of narratives” which opens avenues for a critical reflection on the impact such narratives may have had on the understanding of the crisis, including the creation of a negative climate of division and inappropriate crisis responses. Attribution of blame and blameworthiness was also found to be a common pattern across countries according to which Italians were framed as wrongdoers but also as deserving blame. The analysis shows that the narratives attached to nation-specific decisions were highly culturalized and connected to country-specific shared experiences, such as a sense of national exceptionalism built in opposition with the denigration of Italy as the Other-identity. Informed by Critical Discourse Analysis theory and using narrative networks as a framework for the critical analysis of narratives, this study analyzes the discourse strategies employed by experts, politicians and other social actors from Spain, France, the Netherlands, and the UK when presenting their domestic measures in relation to Italy's response to coronavirus. In the context of the COVID-19 pandemic, when in February 2020 Italy was experiencing more cases than any other country, the Italian response to the crisis originated debates over how to best respond to the outbreak. Luxembourg Centre for Contemporary and Digital History (C 2DH), University of Luxembourg, Esch-sur-Alzette, LuxembourgĬrisis narratives shape public understanding and, consequently, the response to the crisis itself.
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