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Inequality in a Pandemic
There’s a new cliché in town; pandemics are “great equalisers” apparently.
The sentiment has been expressed by a diverse range of public figures, from New York Governor Andrew Cuomo to economist and inequality expert Branko Milanović. Even pop-singer Madonna got in on the act, posting a video of herself in a bath telling fans that the coronavirus is “the great equaliser”.
In some ways, Madonna is right. Once the Covid-19 virus infects you it cares not for your race, nationality or gender. Nor does it worry whether you are a millionaire, billionaire or on minimum wage. Even the Prime Minister of the UK found himself in intensive care this week; a timely reminder that once it infects you, the coronavirus concerns itself only with its own propagation and all that matters then is the strength of the immune system with which it does battle. So in theory everyone is at risk, regardless of social class. Accordingly, as world leaders exhort their societies to pull together to defeat the virus, a common refrain has been that “we are all in this together”.
But we are not “all in this together”. Some of us are in this a lot more than others.
We know that old age or having certain medical conditions makes some people more susceptible to coronavirus than others. But it is becoming increasingly apparent that we should add a third category…
