What is government for? Coronavirus stirs old question anew.

It’s the most basic of political questions, but COVID-19 is now moving it from the philosophy classroom into nearly every corner of every country on Earth: What is government for?

And the answer where it most matters – among citizens, among the governed – seems to be changing dramatically, at least in places  feeling the worst effects of the virus. There, the immediate task of government has become acutely clear: Protect us and our loved ones, and give us the information, policies, tools, and care for that to happen.

That’s also part of a more fundamental change, at a time when trust in all established institutions had been eroding. Suddenly, there seems to be a renewed sense that government actually matters – that there are some things only governments can do. And, in crisis, things that governments must do.

There’s another, related change: Despite the reach of the internet in amplifying conspiracy theories and competing versions of events, we’re seeing a rekindled respect, and a need, for expertise and trustworthy research. For facts.

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Whether, of course, such changes will prove enduring, once the worst of the crisis has finally passed, will take many months to answer. But the unfamiliar demands on governments and leaders are immediate.

They’re being felt with particular urgency because they’re not coming only from lobbyists or think tanks. They’re from nurses and emergency workers, imploring those in charge to get them protective gear. From captains or passengers on ships where the virus has struck, pleading for a place to dock. From men and women, old and young, wanting assurances they’ll have the food, supplies, and care they need, often suddenly finding themselves without the week-to-week funds to afford them.

Even in some developed countries – where most of the cases, or at least those publicly acknowledged, are so far occurring – that’s forcing a rethink. For Britain’s ruling Conservatives, and Chancellor Angela Merkel’s coalition government in Germany, tight-pursed fiscal prudence has long been a political article of faith. Yet within days of the first, stark economic impact of the COVID-19 crisis, both countries announced huge aid and stimulus packages, with the promise of more to come.

Similar fiscal responses are now in place or on the way in nearly all countries where citizens are feeling the impact of shutdowns of economic activity.

But however costly, in political terms, that’s often proving the easiest adjustment for the people in power.

A cry for ‘going big’

Elected leaders championing “small government,” for instance, are facing a crisis that is prompting demands for the opposite. U.S. President Donald Trump, in recent days, has been visibly struggling to square that circle. On the one hand, he has repeatedly portrayed the crisis as ultimately the responsibility of state and local leaders. But sky-high poll ratings for many state governors on the front line, in New York or Michigan, Washington or Ohio, have left no doubt of the grassroots hunger for assertive, effective, honest, and straightforward government action.

The president’s overall take on who is responsible is showing little sign of changing. Yet he did announce on Friday a federal government arrangement that he said would guarantee that no American, even the millions of uninsured, will have to pay if hospitalized with COVID-19. 

As not just a small-government leader, but a populist who has been sometimes almost flamboyantly dismissive of science, President Trump has also made another adjustment: deferring, on at least some major calls, to the scientific experts in his coronavirus task force.

Authoritarian regimes are faced with a different challenge. They do believe in strong central government, with pretty much everything ultimately subject to central control. But the impact of COVID-19 – an adversary they cannot defeat by force, much less by decree – is being felt no less by their citizens than those in democratic countries. The human response, the instinctive list of things they want from their rulers, has been much the same: Protect us; give us the information and tools and care we need. 

Even in China – which, after initially hiding the outbreak, took draconian measures to bring it under control – there has been extraordinary public criticism of the early failings on the country’s tightly controlled social media.

In other authoritarian countries like Russia and Egypt, and even in India, a democracy, but one led by strongman populist Narendra Modi, the full impact of having to answer to the changing public mood is only now beginning to hit.

All three of those countries seem likely to struggle with an inexorably widening number of cases – India and Egypt, in particular, both with huge populations, many areas of economic deprivation, and a patchy healthcare system. All three have recently imposed restraints on movement and economic activity.

But in a measure of their nervousness about what may be coming, and whether they’ll be able to meet ordinary citizens’ needs and expectations, all of these nation’s rulers have something else in common. In recent days, they have moved to rein in or even punish  independent reporting or comment on the scale of the outbreak.

Editor’s note: As a public service, all our coronavirus coverage is free. No paywall.