Today we met with Dr. Steven Thrasher, a professor of journalism at Northwestern who is currently on tour for his book, The Viral Underclass. In his book, he discusses 12 points that have contributed to how viruses have exposed the social determinants that keep marginalized peoples from achieving equity.

Something that struck me with Thrasher’s book was the humanity that was involved when discussing the relationship between the virus and marginalized peoples. While viruses expose inequities, they also expose how we connect to one another. While viruses such as HIV and Monkeypox originate their spread in particular communities, they expose the intricacies and tightness of communities that are formed when they are accepted as part of the norm. Other viruses, such as COVID, while concentrated in marginalized communities, have managed to spread to all parts of society, via breathing, one of the most integral parts of human commonalities and connection. Mere presence or conversation, methods that connect all humans to one another, was the perfect pathway for a virus to take advantage of.

Unfortunately, this form of transmission also exposes inequalities. It can be from contact with neighbors and colleagues or simple exposure to more people leading to a greater chance of an infected person. However, society interprets this as the person’s fault for getting the virus, or as an excuse to avoid the marginalized population so they don’t get sick.

Taking this perspective of humanity and knowing inequality, how do we shift blame from the infected person/population to the virus itself? How, in an individualist society, do we recognize that it’s not just the individual actions, but also the environment that increases the risk? If this is true, where do we draw the line between blaming outside sources and blaming ourselves for inequities or products of inequity? At what point should the government intervene? How do we maintain humanity throughout this process?