The coronavirus has been the overwhelming factor shaping politics, economics and society since it emerged from a market in Wuhan. It is often reported on and discussed in the media as if it were a random and totally unpredictable shock to an otherwise healthy society. The truth is, however, that the virus was predicted, and follows on from a range of similar outbreaks since SARS in 2002. Left-wing epidemiologists such as Rob Wallace and Mike Davis have been warning of th growing emergence of viruses of this kind, linking them to intensive factory farming processes that bring humans, animals and microorganisms into close contact in regions previously shielded from such interaction. This talk will examine these and other connections between capitalism and pandemics.