The political hierarchy of infectious disease has finally come full circle. Biden got COVID.
COVID pandemic policies have always been driven by class bias. Right from the outset, governments divided people by essential and nonessential, and medical services by elective and nonelective. How all this came to be, and so suddenly, cries out for explanation. But the effect was undeniable.
By design, the working classes faced the pathogen first while the professional classes had the technological wherewithal and income stream to enable them to hide in their houses. They congratulated themselves for staying safe, daring to open their doors only to grab boxes of groceries dropped off by their lessers.
We don’t have to believe it was a plot. It’s just a class bias. Some people imagine themselves to be more valuable than others, more worthy of remaining clean. Under some epidemiological conditions, this strategy can work for the ruling classes. Let the workers and peasants bear the burden. Their immunity can drive endemicity while keeping their betters safe.
It’s a massive and egregious violation of the social contract, a habit decried in literature from the Bible to Edgar Allan Poe. But it happened nonetheless. It so happened, however, that this particular pathogen made up in prevalence what it lacked in severity. As the lockdowns prolonged the pandemic, the mutations began and the threshold for herd immunity rose ever higher.
At some point, it became obvious: everyone would get it. The stay-home-stay-safe crowd failed in their mission to foist the virus on everyone but themselves.
It took two years but it finally caught up to them. Even the masked. Even the vaccinated. Even the professional classes. Even the ruling classes. Even the president. And with the one little news release that he finally caught COVID, despite every precaution and being quadruple-jabbed, the hope that some could impose the bug on others completely collapsed.
