Coronavirus and the Constitution: Entering the Not-So-Brave New World

Two months have passed since the lockdown began, and statistics indicate that the coronavirus death toll hasn’t risen as high as we might have supposed. Yet already we hear rhetoric of a “post-COVID world,” hauntingly reminiscent of the “post-9/11 world.” However, unlike the tangible event of 9/11, COVID is a threat of an entirely different nature, an “invisible enemy.” The enemy isn’t “out there” to defeat in the old-fashioned way, with bombs and machine guns. But all the same, its pervasiveness renders us into a constant state of paranoia. Even our loved ones become potential...