The Spreading Rate

What disease tells us about how humans connect for good and ill

It is six years since I first began to write and talk about Social Health: how we connect in the digital age of complexity, and how we can stay human in the machine age.

I wanted to show that the way humans connect to each other resembles the way nature’s networks operate, with disease a useful if painful illustration of the strengths and weaknesses of the main artery of connection: Networks.

As I searched for a good case in point I researched extensively the Ebola pandemic of 2014. I was transfixed by the way in which this disease was cruelly spread by touch — the very essence of connection between humans.

Revisiting today what I first wrote in 2016 I’m struck by some similarities between what happened with the Ebola outbreak and what is happening now with Covid-19. Specifically, the way in which the spread of this virus is also in direct proportion to the intimacy with which we connect to each other: in the case of Covid-19 it is breath.

When we speak, sing, shout, we spread the virus. How cruel is that? How much does that cut to the heart of our social selves?

I am also struck afresh, re-reading the Ebola case study of 2014, of the way in which humans, and lawmakers in particular, struggle to contain — I use that word…