Engaging with the Great Pandemic War: Citizens, Artists, Academics

Abstract

Facing the Australian experience of the global Great Pandemic of the virus SARS-CoV-2 (Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome CoV-2), known as the resultant disease, Covid-19, many citizens, including artists, writers and academics, engaged through analytical and creative works. Many of us have become 'citizen scientists', different from "Facebook Certified Experts”, denialists and anti-vaxxers who declare that they have "done my research" ... often on YouTube or Google sites. Seeing “Our Pandemic Zeitgeist”, a warlike experience, through the lens of my own engagements as a prose poet diarising our stories, a painter escaping the pandemic, one of several researchers advocating better health policies, and a trench warrior against Facebook pandemic fantasists, this account offers a distinctive perspective.