COVID-19 ‘Immunity’ in Dhaka Slums: Do Genes Matter?

After coronavirus spread beyond China, many predicted that the virus would wreak havoc on low-income countries, especially those with overcrowded slums. And yet, nine months after the outbreak, the COVID-19 death toll in several of the world’s biggest slums is very low. This paper asks the question: Do Bangladeshi slum dwellers possess some form of immunity to the effects of COVID-19? To shed light on the problem, we undertook two rounds of a survey in three of Dhaka city's largest slums before and after a super spreader event, the Eid-al-Adha festival. The findings suggest very low or negligible COVID-19 fatality among slum households. We propose four explanations of the seeming immunity to coronavirus among Dhaka’s slum dwellers.