What are the dangers of telling people to stay at home? (Des Fitzgerald)

By Des Fitzgerald

“Stay at home” has become the iconic governmental injunction of the pandemic, often re-enforced by images of tearful health workers, circulated on social media, telling people to “stay the f***k* at home.” But what are the risks of this forceful instruction? What are we doing, as social and political actors, when we insist that people stay fixed in place?