Beat the Devil

A searing account of seventeen days during the pandemic

Covid-19 seems to be a sort of dirty bomb, thrown into the body to cause havoc.

On the same day that the UK government finally made the first of two decisive interventions that led to a conspicuously late lockdown, David Hare contracted Covid-19.

Covid-19 seems to be a sort of dirty bomb, thrown into the body to cause havoc.

On the same day that the UK government finally made the first of two decisive interventions that led to a conspicuously late lockdown, David Hare contracted Covid-19. Nobody seemed to know much about it then, and many doctors are not altogether sure they know much more today. Suffering a pageant of apparently random symptoms, Hare recalls the delirium of his illness, which mixed with fear, dream, honest medicine and dishonest politics to create a monologue of furious urgency and power.