Why Is COVID-19 Targeting The Rich?

COVID-19 has spread in a remarkable pattern never before seen in modern human history:

Photo by Austin Distel on Unsplash

It seems to target the remarkably rich.

Normally, outbreaks (such as cholera) devastate low-income communities first. MERS, SARS and many modern pandemics are far more likely to show up in densely populated, working-class areas than at a country club.

COVID-19 is behaving differently. After leaving China, the virus spread to the highest levels of society - from the U.S. Congress, Tom Hanks and NBA pros to sitting heads of state and billionaires. One of the first major clusters in Europe affected two dozen people at an upscale ski resort in France. Instead of percolating in city slums, COVID-19 hung out on expensive cruise ships. Some of the very first cases in Hong Kong didn’t show up in low-income urban centers, but at the Four Seasons Hotel. Meanwhile, many of the poorest countries in the world seem to be the safest.

What’s going on here? Is this the Bernie Sanders of…