All in defiance of

You can reword this as "All of this is in defiance of scientific advice and pleas for people to physically distance – to stay indoors – and to refrain from behaviours like stockpiling."

Does this clarify the meaning for you?

Clive

book mango 418 How can I interpret “all” here? How does it contribute to the meaning of the sentence?

I see it differently. The writer, frustrated at his own inability to express himself, has tossed in an "all" for no reason other that that he thinks it will lend force to his ill-thought-out argument. Unless, of course, there is more in the previous paragra

The "all" reaches back through the text, past what you have quoted, to a prior sentence in the original document: "Calls for kindness have been replaced by empty supermarket shelves and ignorance in the face of a global crisis."

Thank you for including the hyperlink. Context matters. There is also a reasonable possibility that the article you linked to was edited prior to publicatio