Why protecting the 'viral underclass' can keep us all healthy

It's Been a Minute

NPR

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🗓️ 2 August 2022

⏱️ 16 minutes

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Summary

After years of covering HIV and AIDS, journalist Steven Thrasher knew that the hardest hit communities were almost always the poorest and most marginalized ones. Then COVID-19 struck, and he saw that the same groups of people were suffering the most.

In his new book The Viral Underclass: The Human Toll When Inequality and Disease Collide, Thrasher explores how this pattern plays out in communities around the world. Guest host Tracie Hunte talks to him about the ways that systemic oppression puts marginalized people at greater risk of infection for all diseases – and also blames them for transmission.

You can follow us on Twitter @NPRItsBeenAMin and email us at [email protected].

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hey y'all, you're listening to It's Been a Minute from NPR.
0:06.0	I'm Tracy Hunt.
0:07.6	You may know me as a correspondent for WNYC Studios, the public radio station in New York
0:12.4	City.
0:13.4	But for the next two weeks, I'll be guest hosting the show.
0:17.0	And today, I want to introduce you to a term you may not have heard before.
0:21.5	The viral underclass.
0:23.4	The phrase is new to me too, but it essentially refers to a group of people who are the most
0:28.6	dramatically affected when a virus or a disease surfaces.
0:32.8	They're more likely to get sick.
0:34.9	They're kin and the people around them are more likely to get sick.
0:39.2	And even if they do get the care, they could leave a hospital with a $100,000 bill that's
0:44.0	going to financially ruin them for the rest of their lives.
0:47.4	That's Dr. Steven Thresher, a journalist who has spent years covering HIV and AIDS.
0:52.6	He's the author of a new book called The Viral Underclass.
0:56.2	The human toll when inequality and disease collide.
1:00.6	And his argument is that no matter the virus or how it's transmitted, it's almost always
1:05.9	the most marginalized people who are harmed the most.
1:09.3	I came up with this analytic because I was seeing the same maps that I'd seen where
1:14.6	HIV and AIDS were most concentrated.
1:19.0	We're initially the same maps that were where the most COVID transmissions were happening.
1:24.8	They overlap a lot right now with where the monkeypox infections are happening.
	...

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