Framing the pandemic in the UK and in the US: the war, the science and the herd

Abstract This research looks at the frames British and American leaders have chosen to refer to the COVID-19 crisis. After a short description of the black swan metaphor to prove that the coronavirus pandemic was not an unexpected event, but rather predicted and foreseen, the paper first illustrates how politicians found themselves using a military language when discussing such a ‘crazy and horrible plague’, as bellicose rhetoric serves special and legitimate purposes, thus communicating the sense of urgency and emergency. Then, I look at two frames which have come to characterize the pandemic: ‘the’ science and the myth of herd immunity. I first show how leaders claimed to “be guided by the science”, thus causing the frustration of experts who were held responsible for all decisions made by politicians, and then I illustrate how the ‘herd immunity’ myth is managed in the UK and in the US, with a special focus on the idiosyncratic use Donald Trump makes of the word ‘herd’, which takes on an altogether different meaning from the scientific original frame.