LAUSR

The COVID-19 pandemic has been unfolding in the age of post-truth. Named as 2016's word of the year by the Oxford Dictionary, post-truth is defined as "relating to or denoting circumstances in which objective facts are less influential in shaping public opinion than appeals to emotion and personal belief" (Mcintyre 2018, p. 5). This article considers the enduring - if not intensified - feeling of and for truth in the face of the uncertainties and competing narratives of the pandemic. As I will show, this feeling of and for truth takes a specific affective expression, which I call sentimental intimacy. Zooming in on four case studies in the Chinese context - cutting or shaving off female nurses' hair, machines and workers at hospital construction sites, the shortage of sanitary pads, and the controversy over Fang Fang's diary - I argue that the sentimental intimacy of truth concerns an irreducible attachment to an imagined inside whose close/d-ness undergoes constant negotiation.