In view of the increasing coronavirus death toll around the globe, centralized governments have been put under the spotlight to account for the deaths in the sovereign states they represent. But could it be a problem if we simply hold governments accountable for deaths by demanding accurate and transparent accounting of the total? Is there a better way to account for deaths in a pandemic without ignoring the pathos of loss and undermining our capacity to act spontaneously? I engage with these questions by looking at how the ethics/politics of death, as two sides of the same coin, affect our understanding of accountability in the time of COVID-19. I distinguish between two types of accountability that correspond to the two meanings of “account for”: “to explain the reason or the cause of something” and “to form part of a total” (Cambridge Dictionary¹). The second type of accountability, informed by a Deleuzian ethics of death, is explored through an interpretative case study of accounting for the deaths in Wuhan, where the global pandemic began. It shows that accountability is essentially a freedom-enabled endeavour to account for deaths through our repetition in mourning, which forms part of honouring the dead, the dying and the living. This new configuration implies that a more radical form of accounting is needed in order to appreciate the value of life and be mindful of the socio-psychological costs associated with deaths.

鉴于全球冠状病毒死亡人数的增加，集中政府已成为人们关注的焦点，以说明它们所代表的主权国家的死亡人数。但是，如果我们仅要求政府对死亡总数负责，而又要求准确，透明地对总数进行核算，那么这会是一个问题吗？有没有更好的方法可以解决大流行中的死亡，而又不忽略损失的悲痛和破坏我们自发行动的能力？我通过研究死亡的伦理/政治作为同一个硬币的两个方面，来探讨这些问题，这在COVID-19时代如何影响我们对问责制的理解。我区分两种类型的问责制，它们对应于“ account for”的两个含义：“解释某事的原因或原因”和“构成总数的一部分”（剑桥词典）¹）。通过对德鲁兹人的死亡伦理学加以了解的第二种责任类型，是通过对全球大流行开始的武汉市的死亡人数进行解释性案例研究来探讨的。它表明，问责制实质上是一种通过自由来实现的努力，通过我们在哀悼中的死亡来解决死亡，这是对死者，垂死者和活人的敬意的一部分。这种新的配置意味着需要一种更激进的会计形式，以便欣赏生命的价值并注意与死亡相关的社会心理成本。