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The role of socio-economic conditions has been largely implicit in mathematical epidemiological models. However, measures to address the current pandemic, specifically the relevant interventions proposing physical distancing, have highlighted how social determinants affect contagion and mortality dynamics of COVID-19. For the most part, these social determinants are not present in either policy discussions or in relevant epidemiological models. We argue for the importance of incorporating relevant social determinants of health into the modelling dynamics of COVID-19, and show how global variation of these conditions may be integrated into relevant models. In doing so, we also highlight a key political economy aspect of reproduction dynamics in epidemics.

This article explores the role of liberalized real estate markets in shaping financialsector development in the Arab Gulf region. Since 2001, record oil revenues and the inflow of repatriated wealth into the region have generated immense demand for new, productive destinations for surplus capital. Gulf Cooperation Council states have subsequently undergone rapid growth that is intimately tied to the regulatory transformation of urban real estate markets and the circulation of surplus capital from oil rents to the 'secondary circuit' of the built environment. With an emphasis on the city of Dubai, we employ the notion of diversification by urbanization to trace the re-regulation of real estate markets and highlight how these strategies have subsequently shaped Gulf financial markets. Through an examination of the impacts of real estate mega-project development on local banking credit, equities and Islamic financial markets, we reframe recent urbanization in the region as a process of financial re-engineering, and identify the emergence of capital groups whose accumulation activities are tightly connected to both the real estate and financial circuit.