Few things are discus­sed more in Iceland, or really around the world, than Covid-19. The biolog­ical threat is obvi­ous, peop­le’s health and lives are threa­tened, but pandem­ics like this one do also have deep soci­al, polit­ical and economic con­sequences. With few other options during these unprecedented times, Sig­rún relies on technology in this week’s podcast and discus­ses with Alex­andre White, assistant pro­fessor of soci­ology and the history of med­icine at John Hop­k­ins Uni­versity in Baltimore. He comp­leted his doct­oral degree from Boston Uni­versity in 2018 and it happ­ens to be the case that Sig­rún was a mem­ber of his diss­erta­tion committee. His res­e­arch focuses on pandem­ics and he is cur­rently fin­is­hing up a book, based on his diss­erta­tion, entitled “Ep­idemic Ori­ental­ism: Social Construct­ion and the Global Mana­gement of Infect­i­ous Dise­a­se” where he focused on how def­ini­tions and responses to pandem­ics are soci­ally constructed and often ref­lect the histor­ical power imbalance between Western soci­eties and other soci­eties. During the podcast, they discuss how things are evol­v­ing in the United States and put the threat that the whole world is experiencing in a soci­olog­ical per­spect­i­ve.