The pandemic of Covid-19 imposes an unprecedented threat to our societies. To identify the causes and anticipate the consequences we may consider two types of exposures: The viral, rapidly spreading, albeit, only the tip of the iceberg of contaminated individuals are being tested; The stress-related exposure characterized by the wave of health- and threat-related information, the effects of social distanciation, lockdown, etc… and the fear and realizations of an economic recession.

Addressing the context of the pandemic, the lecture will briefly introduce Epidemiology in view of old and new epidemics to learn about causation and mediation in social science.