ABSTRACT
Davoudi and Ormerod talks about hope and despair at the time of pandemic. On Mar 11, 2020, the World Health Organization declared the COVID-19 pandemic, stressing that we're in this together. The trope, which is often elevated at the time of crisis, evokes different emotions and serves different purposes. On the one hand, it is an expression of solidarity and a call for global cooperation. On the other hand, it is an invocation of the parity of sufferings and sacrifices. In the context of the pandemic, it is used to suggest that the virus does not discriminate and can affect porters and cleaners as well as princes and prime ministers. However, this narrative overlooks the profoundly unequal health, social and economic impacts of the pandemic. More importantly, unlike the virus itself, which is novel and unknown, its uneven health, social and economic impacts are neither new nor unexpected.