The class politics of modern outbreaks

No one can stop the wealthy from taking their holidays. Whether coasting down snowy mountains or rubbing shoulders with fellow elites on luxury cruises, they will always find a way to indulge in leisure and excess, sometimes even on the cusp of an outbreak.

In January 2020, a German tourist vacationing in the Canary Islands tested positive for the novel coronavirus, becoming Spain’s first confirmed COVID-19 case. The patient, along with five other German nationals travelling with him, was placed under observation. Authorities later discovered that the tourist had been in contact, in Germany, with a Chinese businesswoman infected with COVID-19 before travelling to the archipelago. The episode foreshadowed a pattern that would define the pandemic: Pathogens moved quickly along the same routes as wealthy tourists, business travellers, and international elites.

During the early months of COVID-19, the virus was frequently associated with affluent mobility. Early outbreaks were linked to ski holidays, business trips to Wuhan, and luxury cruises that served as vectors of disease transmission. As Bjorn Thor Arnarson wrote in Scientific Reports, “human transportation was needed to distribute the virus to new places.” Those moving most freely across borders were overwhelmingly affluent.

This dynamic produced strange public perceptions. In Mexico, Governor Luis Miguel Barbosa notoriously declared: “If you’re rich, you’re at risk, but if you’re poor, you’re not. The poor, we’re immune.” His comments were absurd, but they reflected a real phenomenon unfolding at the time. A number of Mexico’s wealthiest bankers had returned from a ski trip in Vail, Colorado, carrying the virus with them. When public health officials attempted to contact several members of the group about possible exposure, many reportedly failed to respond.

Yet diseases associated with elite mobility rarely remain confined to elites. Public health officials quickly encountered a familiar paradox: While affluent travellers often accelerate the international spread of disease, it is usually poorer populations who suffer most once outbreaks become entrenched. During COVID-19, wealthier families fled to second homes, worked remotely, and insulated themselves from exposure, while working-class populations continued labouring in crowded cities, factories, and public transport systems. The wealthy carried the virus across borders, but the poor absorbed much of the risk.

In this sense, pandemics often mirror the inequalities of globalisation itself: Those with the greatest freedom of movement generate disproportionate epidemiological risk, while those with the fewest resources are left most exposed to its consequences.

Class has long shaped not only vulnerability to disease, but also the social narratives built around epidemics. Tuberculosis was once romanticised as a disease of artists and intellectuals, partly because writers and painters documented their experiences with it. By contrast, diseases such as Ebola and HIV/AIDS became heavily associated with poverty. Still, the role of elite mobility in spreading infectious disease remains significant in an increasingly globalised world. The same tensions between wealth, mobility, and vulnerability resurfaced during the recent hantavirus scare on board the MV Hondius.