I submitted a first draft of Data Livesto Bristol University Press at the start of February 2020. At the time, the coronavirus pandemic was in its initial phases. News media were highlighting the number of cases and deaths in China and other East Asian countries, and reporting on the delay and containment measures being put in place to try and limit the spread of the virus. While there was uncertainty and complacency in the West, there was also a sense that the virus might sweep around the world in a fashion more akin to Spanish Flu in 1918–20, than SARS in 2002–04 or MERS in 2012–13. The first case had been recorded in the United States on 21 January and in Europe on 24 January, and the World Health Organization had declared a global health emergency on 30 January. While I followed the news stories and viewed the numbers, graphs and maps with interest, the virus and its effects still seemed somewhat distant and otherworldly. I chatted with colleagues about what effect the pandemic might have if the virus got established in Europe and what might be done to prevent this, but it was in passing over coffee and mostly speculative and uninformed. There was little sense that the virus, and data about its circulation and effects, would come to saturate national discourses and everyday conversation within a few short weeks and be thekey driver of public policy and determinant of the bounds of everyday life.

And yet, in May as I write this chapter, the lives of the majority of people on the planet are being thoroughly shaped by data about the virus. In particular, the number of new cases and deaths and the reproduction rate, which are fed into predictive models of disease, are driving public health policy, which is dictating wider sectoral policies, and are informing public and political debate. These data are literally about life and death and they are underpinning decisions of enormous consequence – shutting down all but essential services, limiting movement to only vital trips, cocooning the elderly, supporting the healthcare system, laying off millions of workers, government borrowing to support families and businesses, and shaping the timeline and composition of how restrictions will be lifted.