Lockdown has polarised British society; widening the gulf between the haves and have-nots, in a culture war yielding familiar tropes and characters. “Just stay at home, it’s not hard,” says the lawyer to the electrician. “Don’t sunbathe in the park!” cries Pandora from her Notting Hill townhouse. There is some truth in the caricature. But few have noted how the Pandora effect is also playing out on a monstrous global scale, inflicting unimaginable suffering.