The covid-19 pandemic is a global pandemic.  There are confirmed cases in nearly all of the world’s countries.  The pandemic is believed to have started with a guy and a bat in a wet market in Wuhan — half a world away from the United States.  President Trump has repeatedly bragged that he prevented the spread of the novel coronavirus to the U.S. by first banning flights from China, and later similarly banning flights from Europe.  So why do more people in the U.S. have the virus than anywhere else?

Only 4.23 percent of the people on planet earth live in the United States.  But as of today, 30.36 percent of all covid-19 cases in the world are in the United States, and 18.19 percent of the deaths caused by the virus have occurred in the U.S.  The United States claims to be the most advanced society in the world with the world’s best health care system.  You would think some undeveloped country would have the most covid-19 cases — not the United States.  So why has the U.S. suffered such an out-sized blow at the hands of this disease from far away?

Wealth.  Wealth is a vector.