A Disease of Rich People?

 

Is COVID-19 a disease of rich people?

I usually check the COVID-19 data explorer at ourworldindata.org once a day, sometimes just to see how COVID-19 cases and deaths are trending in the United States, and occasionally to compare with what’s going on in the European Union or with individual countries such as Ireland, India, Ukraine, or the United Kingdom. It’s easy. On the left is a check-box list. You can check the countries or regions you want to appear on the graph or uncheck them to remove them when the graph gets too cluttered. There is also a slider one can use to take a closer look at the most recent period.

Tonight, I noticed something different, three new categories that are not countries: high income, upper middle income, and lower middle income. I have no idea where those data are coming from, but I’ll wager a guess that they represent data from the United States. So here’s what they look like.

covid-19 deaths by economic status

covid-19 cases by economic statusNote that except for a period earlier this year, COVID-19 deaths and cases both occurred at a higher rate in the upper income group.

I wasn’t sure if these are real data or a practical joke, but I did an Internet search for “COVID rich person’s disease” and found this from an Los Angeles Times article very early in the pandemic:

Pandemics throughout history have been associated with the underprivileged, but in many developing countries the coronavirus was a high-class import — carried in by travelers returning from business trips in China, studies in Europe, ski vacations in the Rockies.

As infections initially concentrated in better neighborhoods, many poor and working-class people believed the disease wouldn’t touch them, as if something terrible but rarefied. The misperception was fed by elites, including the governor of Mexico’s Puebla state, Luis Miguel Barbosa, who said in March: “If you’re rich, you’re at risk, but if you’re poor, you’re not. The poor, we’re immune.”

By now it is clear that COVID-19 spares no one and disproportionately harms the hungry, the forgotten and those with preexisting illnesses and substandard healthcare.

But now, 1.5 years after that article was written, is it becoming clear that COVID-19 disproportionately harms the rich?

Some other questions come to mind:

  • Are these data real?
  • Do these trends hold for all countries and regions?
  • Does this mean that all the mandates and lockdowns were used to shut down the little people in order to protect their betters, who are more vulnerable?
  • A reversal of the trend seems to have taken place about the time vaccines were introduced and to have lasted through midsummer. Is this why rich people (including a lot of government and government-adjacent people) were so insistent about vaccines? Partial disclosure: I’m pretty enthusiastic about the vaccines myself, am extremely middle income, and have been adjacent to a lot of government-adjacent people throughout most of my working life.
  • How does this information square with information showing that severe COVID-19 is mostly a problem for the elderly and the obese?
  • A closer look will probably suggest other questions. What am I missing so far?

Note: You can click on the graphs to go to the website and compare with other data.

Published in Healthcare
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  1. The Reticulator Member
    The Reticulator
    @TheReticulator

    After morning doctor appointments, etc., I finally got around to this: The graphs I posted in the OP are per capita death and case rates.  Well, not just per one capita, but per a million capitas.  When you look at the raw data, rather than per million data (it’s a check-box above the graph) a  rough eye-balling of the data will show that they amount to roughly 6x the number of cases in the United States.  So we’re not looking at just U.S. data here.  URL.

    • #31
  2. Misthiocracy got drunk and Member
    Misthiocracy got drunk and
    @Misthiocracy

    The Reticulator (View Comment):

    After morning doctor appointments, etc., I finally got around to this: The graphs I posted in the OP are per capita death and case rates. Well, not just per one capita, but per a million capitas. When you look at the raw data, rather than per million data (it’s a check-box above the graph) a rough eye-balling of the data will show that they amount to roughly 6x the number of cases in the United States. So we’re not looking at just U.S. data here. URL.

    Then I will definitely continue to subscribe to the hypothesis that the graphs don’t illustrate a difference between rich people and poor people within the same country, but rather a difference between rich countries and poor countries, at least until proven otherwise.

    • #32
  3. The Reticulator Member
    The Reticulator
    @TheReticulator

    Misthiocracy got drunk and (View Comment):

    The Reticulator (View Comment):

    After morning doctor appointments, etc., I finally got around to this: The graphs I posted in the OP are per capita death and case rates. Well, not just per one capita, but per a million capitas. When you look at the raw data, rather than per million data (it’s a check-box above the graph) a rough eye-balling of the data will show that they amount to roughly 6x the number of cases in the United States. So we’re not looking at just U.S. data here. URL.

    Then I will definitely continue to subscribe to the hypothesis that the graphs don’t illustrate a difference between rich people and poor people within the same country, but rather a difference between rich countries and poor countries, at least until proven otherwise.

    That is now my suspicion as well. 

    • #33
  4. Misthiocracy got drunk and Member
    Misthiocracy got drunk and
    @Misthiocracy

    Dr. Bastiat (View Comment):
    I’m generalizing, of course.  But that’s been my experience.

    Nearly all epidemiology depends on generalized statistics.

    • #34
  5. Misthiocracy got drunk and Member
    Misthiocracy got drunk and
    @Misthiocracy

    Old Bathos (View Comment):
    My home county is 60% white but 57% of all reported COVID cases are non-white residents.  It is not possible that the rich are infected more often here.

    Unlikely, but still possible.  It’s possible that rich folk were more likely to write it off as a cold or a flu when they caught it and so they just took a few sick days for bedrest, especially during the early months of the pandemic.  By contrast, the poor are more likely to go to the Emergency Room for colds and flu generally (because the working poor don’t get paid sick days so they cannot afford to take time off, and the non-working poor will use any excuse to go to Emergency Room in hopes of scoring some free drugs), so they would be overcounted in the statistics.

    Again, I’m not saying that’s the likely explanation for the statistic, but it’s not impossible. One can never prove a causal relationship from a single correlation.

    • #35
  6. Misthiocracy got drunk and Member
    Misthiocracy got drunk and
    @Misthiocracy

    cdor (View Comment):

    OK, I asked Mr. Google and this is what he said…https://duckduckgo.com/?q=do+rich+people+live+longer&atb=v153-1&ia=web

    P.S.

    I don’t speak to him directly. I always have my pet duck talk for me.

    I will go to my grave cursing the founders of DuckDuckGo for failing to choose a name that could be turned into a verb easily.

    Oh yeah, you better believe I’m that vindictive!

    • #36
  7. cdor Member
    cdor
    @cdor

    Dr. Bastiat (View Comment):

    Doctor Robert (View Comment):

    Wealth associates with longevity, obesity and inadequate physical activity. Case closed.

    In my experience, that association would be inverse.

    In America, poor people tend to be overweight, inactive, and in poor health. Rich people don’t smoke cigarettes, they watch what they eat and they do Pilates.

    I’m generalizing, of course. But that’s been my experience.

    I was definitely guessing the same thing. 

    • #37
  8. JoshuaFinch Coolidge
    JoshuaFinch
    @JoshuaFinch

    Doctor Robert (View Comment):

    Wealth associates with longevity, obesity and inadequate physical activity. Case closed.

    Which would explain out of proportion deaths of those in assisted living or nursing homes, who tend to be well heeled.

    • #38
  9. Judge Mental Member
    Judge Mental
    @JudgeMental

    The Reticulator (View Comment):

    Judge Mental (View Comment):

    Old people are richer than young people? Meaning, on average, those with co-morbidities will be richer?

    Maybe. I guess somebody needs to do the numbers.

    I used the question marks for a reason.  I know those things are true, but I don’t know that they are the explanation for the numbers.  One odd thing… the lines for low and middle income track fairly closely over time, with a fairly steady differential.  But the highs and lows of the rich line vary significantly, sometimes crossing over the others.  Vacations in Gstaad?  Shopping at Whole Foods?  I dunno.

    • #39
  10. Bishop Wash Member
    Bishop Wash
    @BishopWash

    Misthiocracy got drunk and (View Comment):
    (Note: All those 536 cases were in “poor” countries.  The 175 wild cases were in just two countries: Pakistan and Afghanistan.)

    We can probably put some of that on Barry. Didn’t he leak that we were using vaccine doctors to get DNA to help track Osama? All of a sudden people in those countries didn’t trust the vaccine programs.

    • #40
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