, Columnist
The Gig Economy Compromised Our Immune System
Epidemics exploit the weak spots of the societies they erupt in. Covid-19 went for the low-paid who couldn’t work from home.
Testing for coronavirus at a slaughterhouse in Germany.
Photographer: Ina Fassbender/AFP/Getty
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There’s nothing arbitrary about an epidemic.
While each disease is the product of a chain of accidental genetic shifts, the process that turns a novel infection into a devastating outbreak is as much social as biological. The vast majority of new conditions will die out before they spread beyond a handful of people. Only rarely will one exploit the fault lines of our social order to rampage through the entire human population.