Boris’s war on obesity is a mistake

In less enlightened times, an outbreak of a deadly virus was taken as a sign of God’s displeasure and would be accompanied by the persecution of an unpopular minority. It was less than a coincidence that the scapegoats tended to be those of whom the Church took a dim view: heretics, ‘witches’ (i.e. unmarried women) and, above all, Jews. How neatly it all fitted into an existing narrative.

The desire to fit the Covid-19 pandemic into a moral fable of what sinfulness means in a secular society has been palpable. One of the most puzzling features of the virus is the way in which it severely incapacitates certain people while leaving others virtually unscathed. It is unsettling to think that our fate could depend on the roll of a dice. We don’t want to believe in an invisible, indiscriminate killer. We want to find to find some logic.

In a society in which healthfulness means drinking plenty of water and avoiding carbs, we want to believe that we can avoid the worst effects of Covid-19 if we just the follow the rules.