Introduction

Abstract The opening chapter introduces the reader to the Lex-Atlas: Covid-19 (LAC19), which also encompasses The Oxford Compendium of National Legal Responses to Covid-19 and other outputs. It discusses the criteria for selection of the fifty-three jurisdictions of the project and their representativity; details why we consider close attention to the legal character of responses to be a crucial aspect of a good pandemic response beyond morbidity and mortality; provides a summary of each of the other eleven chapters of the book and then identifies some of the major themes emerging in the book as a whole, such as executive aggrandizement, pandemic opportunism, democratic resilience, and normalization.