John Carpenter’s 1988 film They Live portrays an alien species that ravages the Earth through unrestrained commercialisation. The equally malevolent SARS-CoV-2 virus has wreaked similar havoc, killing or debilitating millions – but it has also hypnotised the global economy into torpor. SARS-CoV-2 is Carpenter’s aliens in zombie reprise. We instinctively talk of ‘killing’ the virus with soap or disinfectant (before it kills us, and the economy). But since the virions need a host cell to replicate, they lack a vital defining characteristic of living things (according to one common definition of life). They live? // 3402 px x 2126 px // 72dpi //20MB // jpg