For a brief moment, in the early days of COVID‐19, some reports heralded the new coronavirus, SARS‐CoV‐2, as a “great equalizer.” It is unlikely that any anthropologist, human biologist, historian, or public health scientist found this idea tempting. Pandemics always follow the fault lines of society—exposing and often magnifying power inequities that shape population health even in normal times (Wade, 2020).