The UK, despite its perceived high level of pandemic preparedness in 2019, experienced a disastrous second wave of COVID-19 in early 2021, resulting in one of the highest per capita death rates globally. This discrepancy sparked intense debate and became a focal point of the UK COVID-19 Inquiry. This paper contributes to this reflection by investigating the role of 'imagined publics' in shaping the UK's scientific advice and policy responses. Drawing on Science and Technology Studies (STS), the authors challenge the notion of a singular, homogenous public, arguing that the UK's pandemic response was significantly influenced by how policymakers and scientific advisors envisioned the public. Understanding these imagined publics is crucial because how scientists and decision-makers perceive the public directly impacts the communication of scientific advice, the construction of relevant knowledge, and the overall policy approach. The paper argues that the UK's pandemic response was not solely determined by scientific evidence but also shaped by pre-existing political and cultural narratives. The high stakes and urgent nature of the decisions during the pandemic further exacerbated the tension between scientific expertise and political realities.

The paper draws on existing literature in Science and Technology Studies (STS), which critiques the framing of a singular 'public' in discussions of science and policy. It builds on work exploring the role of 'imagined publics' in political decision-making, particularly the construction of the 'imagined lay person' by experts to build and justify models for real-world situations. The authors also highlight the challenge to notions of a singular public, emphasizing the existence of multiple, dynamic publics with diverse interests and perspectives. The paper references past crises, such as the BSE/vCJD crisis, to demonstrate how assumptions about public attitudes have shaped scientific advice and policy failures. The paper further connects the construction of imagined publics to the issue of social inequalities, pointing out how systemic inequalities, especially those exacerbated during crises, render simplistic representations of 'the public' inaccurate and potentially harmful.

The study focuses on a three-month period (March 3rd to June 3rd, 2020) and analyzes publicly available data to understand how UK publics were imagined during the early stages of the pandemic. The data sources include: (1) meeting minutes of the Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (SAGE), the primary mechanism for organizing scientific advice in the UK; (2) documents from SAGE subgroups (like SPI-B, the Ethnicity Subgroup, and CO-CIN), executive agencies, and research institutions; and (3) transcripts from political speeches, media interviews, and televised briefings. The analysis considers the pre-pandemic political climate of Brexit and its influence on the government's perception of the public. It examines the events of April 2020 when data revealing the uneven impacts of the pandemic on different groups challenged the prevailing imagery of a 'unified' public. The authors explore the tension between technical advice and political decision-making, observing how these dynamics shaped the public performance of expertise and the relationship between the state, scientists, and citizens. The analysis attempts to identify the initial framing assumptions that shaped the UK's pandemic response, particularly concerning conceptions of 'the public' employed by experts and policymakers.

The analysis reveals two dominant imagined publics co-constructed by policymakers and scientific advisors: (1) The 'freedom-loving' public resistant to stringent policies, reflecting the post-Brexit political climate and emphasizing individual liberty. This imaginary, influenced by the success of the Leave campaign, contributed to the initial delay in implementing lockdown measures. The notion of 'behavioural fatigue' was used as a justification for not modelling lockdown scenarios, despite lacking robust scientific evidence. This is further supported by the comparison between the UK public (imagined as resistant to lockdown) and the Chinese public (imagined as more compliant with restrictions). (2) The 'uniform and united public', a narrative emphasizing national solidarity and shared sacrifice, emerged as the pandemic's inequalities became increasingly evident. This narrative was used to maintain public support for the lockdown, even as data revealed the disproportionate impacts on marginalized communities. However, attempts to maintain this imaginary of unity obscured the widening inequalities and delayed appropriate policy responses. The analysis highlights the tension between the government's public statements emphasizing unity and the emerging data revealing the unequal distribution of COVID-19 impacts, with different social groups experiencing vastly different risks and outcomes. The study observes that the focus on comorbidities, without addressing underlying socio-economic factors, served as a convenient, yet inadequate, explanation for these disparities. The transition from 'stay at home' messaging to 'stay alert' messaging exemplifies a shift from collective to individual responsibility, transferring the onus of pandemic management from the state to individual citizens. The Public Health England's disparities report, published in June 2020, finally shattered the narrative of a uniform public, exposing the government's attempts to downplay existing inequalities.

The findings demonstrate how the co-construction of imagined publics influenced scientific advice and policy decisions during the pandemic. The authors argue that the UK's pandemic response wasn’t simply 'led by the science' but also significantly shaped by prevailing political and cultural imaginaries. The 'science of the possible' and the downplaying of existing inequalities highlight how politics and existing power structures influenced the scientific advice given. The paper challenges the simplistic narrative separating scientific failures from political failures. The study underlines how the chosen imaginaries served to stabilize knowledge and maintain social order in the short term, but ultimately exacerbated existing social inequalities. The paper observes how these imaginaries, rather than stemming from simple ignorance or implicit bias, involved deliberate constructions that resisted revision in the face of contradictory evidence.

The study concludes that the UK's COVID-19 response was significantly shaped by the co-construction of imagined publics that, in turn, influenced the provision of scientific advice. The authors suggest two crucial lessons: First, the tendency to make unsubstantiated assumptions about the public needs and values, and second, the impact of pre-existing inequalities, particularly those related to race and ethnicity, on the framing of the pandemic. The paper advocates for greater diversity within scientific advisory bodies, improved transparency in decision-making processes, and a more critical approach to evaluating the robustness of evidence used to inform policy. The study underscores the need to move beyond simplistic imaginaries of 'the public' toward more nuanced and inclusive approaches that adequately address pre-existing social inequalities.

The study focuses on a specific time period and geographical location, limiting the generalizability of findings to other contexts. The reliance on publicly available data may not capture the full complexity of internal deliberations and decision-making processes. The authors acknowledge that while they focus primarily on race and ethnicity, other intersecting social categories of vulnerability (age, gender, disability, etc.) also played a significant role in shaping the pandemic experience.