Steven Thrasher, who built a career reporting on HIV and its criminalization, found himself quarantining with friends in New York City in March 2020. He recognized the maps of the city’s COVID-19 infections and deaths: they were jarringly similar to maps showing where people lived who were HIV positive, harassed or killed by police, and incarcerated. In his new book The Viral Underclass: The Human Toll When Inequality and Disease Collide, Thrasher navigates these many intersections and explores what it means to be sick under oppressive systems.

Reset sits down with the book’s author.

Host: Susie An

Producer: Sarah Stark

Guest: Steven Thrasher