Who Gets Hit the Hardest?

Covid-19 reveals the stark divide between rich and poor

A Politico story published Tuesday sparked outrage on Twitter when it called Covid-19 an “equalizer.” Describing the struggles of both public and private hospitals in New York, it claimed that rich and poor alike are grappling with the pandemic’s drain on health care and medical resources.

Across the United States, the data tells a different story. Today in The Atlantic, Vann R. Newkirk II argues that the reason more young people are dying of Covid-19 in the South is because they are generally sicker, and they are sicker because they have long suffered from poor health care. “The South is the poorest region in the country,” he writes. “The poor, black, Latino, or rural residents who make up large shares of southern populations tend to lack access to high-quality doctors and care.”

A Reuters report today pointed out that the Covid-19 death rate in New Orleans is seven times higher than that in New York. The analysis came to a similar conclusion: Diabetes, high blood pressure, and obesity occur at higher rates in New Orleans, making people more vulnerable to severe illness. “We already had tremendous health care disparities before this pandemic — one can only imagine they are being amplified now,” Rebekah Gee, Louisiana’s former Health Secretary, told Reuters.

In California, farmworkers maintaining the nation’s food supply are also at increased risk. In addition to having higher rates of hypertension…