Misunderstanding a Viral Pandemic: The Social and Cultural Contexts of COVID-19

IT IS RARE THAT SOCIAL THEORY CAN SAVE LIVES, BUT THE CONCEPTUAL framework through which viral pandemics are largely understood costs lives by failing to include key insights based in social theory. In this paper, we employ a cultural contexts of health approach to show how the ways in which viral transmission is conceptualized, and misunderstood, affect how society deals with pandemics