As Richard Evans observed in his studies of cholera in Europe during the 1800s, epidemics tend to intensify the faultlines in society, and that is certainly true of this new coronavirus. The most obvious lies between the generally well-educated who can retain their jobs and work remotely, while sheltering at home, and the workers who cannot afford to do so. The latter must labour, often for relatively low wages, at cashiers’ desks in grocery stores or pharmacies and drive trains or buses—and deliver the goods consumed by those at home.

To some extent, this faultline mirrors the cleavage, deepening for some time, between those with the college education which confers cosmopolitan dispositions and market power in a globalised economy and those with less education who often hold more traditional values in jobs increasingly threatened by outsourcing and global competition.