• Jessica Colarossi

    Science Writer Twitter Profile

    Jessica Colarossi is a science writer for The Brink. She graduated with a BS in journalism from Emerson College in 2016, with focuses on environmental studies and publishing. While a student, she interned at ThinkProgress in Washington, D.C., where she wrote over 30 stories, most of them relating to climate change, coral reefs, and women’s health. Profile

Comments & Discussion

Boston University moderates comments to facilitate an informed, substantive, civil conversation. Abusive, profane, self-promotional, misleading, incoherent or off-topic comments will be rejected. Moderators are staffed during regular business hours (EST) and can only accept comments written in English. Statistics or facts must include a citation or a link to the citation.

There are 4 comments on Ew, Gross! Four Ways Disgust Is Shaping the Coronavirus Pandemic

  1. Thoughtful and thought provoking article.
    Anthropology and how human behavior has adapted
    and evolved may contribute to possibly understanding the tendency of young males resistance to social distancing.
    Can it be that young men were wired as hunters and jumped into the fray without getting grossed out as a matter of survival? This can maybe explain why more males are falling victim to covid19? Interesting

  2. It seems almost slanderous to correlate men dying at a higher rate than women to men being more “uncean” than women, especially given the flimsy evidence of this article. Maybe a more likely genetic reason will come forth.

    1. But that correlation is wasn’t drawn in the article? I read it as two objective facts: men take protective measures like social distancing less seriously, and men are dying at higher rates of COVID.

  3. I’ve read studies that say Conservatives respond to disgust at a higher rate than Liberals.

    I’ve wondered if one reason that Conservatives have been less motivated to get the vaccine (on a visceral level) is because news about the virus itself has been pretty sterile. We usually see a big ball with some pink cones or golf tees in it. That doesn’t seem very gross or threatening.

    But what would happen if we compared COVID to LICE or a PARASITE using phrases like the virus needs a HOST body to and once embedded begins to multiply – for example.

    Viral load is a pretty gross term that has recently gotten more traction. But it could still be animated in more graphic terms.

    I hardly hear words like mucous, etc.

    Liberals like cerebral explanations of effects (by comparision). In fact, I would imagine that Liberals would be less likely to take COVID seriously if it was described in cartoonish terms as I have suggested above.

    Just a thought.

Post a comment.

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *