How Contagion Works

On 26th February, Paolo Giordano, a physicist and novelist, published an article in the Corriere della Sera (Italy's most widely-read quality newspaper) that was shared 3.5 million times and contributed to shifting public opinion in the early days of the epidemic. Now Paolo has written a short essay he's written while in isolation in his Roman flat. It's an exploration of how contagion works why it matters, what we should be doing but also a broader look at the many ways in which this emergency is linked to other crises: ecological breakdown, climate change, xenophobia, the lack of solidarity in an increasingly complex world.