Open AccessThe seamless web of next generation sequencing and Covid-19
Author(s) -
Karen Kastenhofer
Publication year - 2021
Publication title -
zeitschrift für technikfolgenabschätzung in theorie und praxis
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
eISSN - 2568-020X
pISSN - 2567-8833
DOI - 10.14512/tatup.30.2.18
Subject(s) - covid-19 , multinational corporation , interpretation (philosophy) , politics , public relations , political science , sociology , computer science , virology , medicine , law , disease , pathology , outbreak , infectious disease (medical specialty) , programming language
“When is Covid Covid?” is the title of a discussion paper published by the Centre for Evidence-Based Medicine at Oxford University on 11 September 2020. Amid the multinational struggle for an appropriate social and political approach to the crisis triggered by Covid-19, a recognized panel of medical experts alerts us that Covid-19 is defined very differently in different contexts. One definition focuses on symptoms, another one on RNA sequences of the virus. In the present contribution, this debate is taken up to discuss the extent to which new sequencing practices and their “seamless webs” become socially effective as instances of interpretation and design. At the same time, the limitations of such webs become noticeable as ruptures, seams, and scars.