MAKE IT PLAIN: COVID-19 AND HOW FUNDAMENTAL CULTURAL MISUNDERSTANDINGS ABOUT HOW VIRUSES WORK CAN SPREAD INFECTION AND HESITANCY

Abstract

Abstract It is confusing: many common colds are caused by coronaviruses, but not all coronaviruses cause colds. Some, like SARS-CoV-2, the coronavirus responsible for COVID-19, can cause serious health complications and death. To reduce the risk of the public innocently (and understandably) conflating COVID-19 with the mild sicknesses associated with a common cold, one job of public health would need to be to “make the familiar strange and the strange familiar.” But wait, that is the work of anthropology. I argue that what is missing from many public discussions of COVID-19 is a straight answer to a simple question central to the public’s uptake of science, health guidelines, mandates, and even vaccines: “How do viruses work, that is, infect our cells and make us sick?” The essay that follows attempts to answer this question, contributing to public health by making a critical anthropological distinction between “sickness” and “infection.”