It looks like the title of the op-ed piece I wrote about, "Have Germs, Will Travel," is a part of speech know as a "snowclone," according to Wikipedia:
A snowclone or catch structure is a type of formula-based cliché which uses an old idiom in a new context.
It was originally defined as "a multi-use, customizable, instantly
recognizable, time-worn, quoted or misquoted phrase or sentence that
can be used in an entirely open array of different jokey variants by
lazy journalists and writers."[1]
In this case, it's a takeoff on the old TV Western, "Have Guns, Will Travel." Not to be confused with Jared Diamond's book, "Germs, Guns and Steel." Diamond does talk about the role of epidemics in the progress of civilization.
The term was coined by Glen Whitman in response to a request for a name for tropes contained in this category:
Geoff Pullum of Language Log
says we need a word to denote “phrases for lazy writers in kit form.”
To be more specific, “the thing we need a name for is a multi-use,
customizable, instantly recognizable, time-worn, quoted or misquoted
phrase or sentence that can be used in an entirely open array of
different jokey variants by lazy journalists and writers.” As the
paradigmatic example, Pullum offers the frequent use of the old saw
about Eskimos having some really large number of words for snow (which
turns out to be false) in sentences like, “If Eskimos have N words for
snow, then Santa Cruzans must have even more for surf.”