If you think the virus is bad, wait till you see what mass poverty does. //

One thing that is undeniable is that being poor comes with health problems. Your healthcare isn’t exactly Cadillac, your diet has a higher chance of being bad, and the stresses of raising a family with little money can induce its own health problems. It’s a sad fact of life and one that we’ve been dealing with since time immemorial. In fact, epidemiologists refer to poverty as the “cause of causes.” //

According to the University of California San Francisco, your wealth is one of the best gauges for success or failure of the human health condition:

“Socioeconomic status is the most powerful predictor of disease, disorder, injury and mortality we have,” says Tom Boyce, MD, chief of UCSF’s Division of Developmental Medicine within the Department of Pediatrics. Socioeconomic status is a term that often includes measurements of income, education, and job prestige – individually or in combination. The predictive power of income alone is perhaps most obvious when considering life expectancy. Impoverished adults live seven to eight years less than those who have incomes four or more times the federal poverty level, which is $11,770 for a one-person household, whether you live in Silicon Valley, the Rust Belt or the rural South. //

Imagine being in isolation as you watch your bills come due and no job to show for it. Imagine not having much help in the way of finances.

You’re alone, you can hardly afford food, you’re jobless, and you don’t know when this will end. Hope starts to look like a stupid concept and ideas start to roll through your head that aren’t safe. //

Meaning this virus is far more infections than we thought and way more ineffectual for the vast majority of people who have or had it.

With that known, we can come to some easy conclusions. The effects of poverty are hard to escape. No matter what, it’s going to affect your health and you’re likely going to die earlier because of it. Infection by the coronavirus is hard to escape too but it’s far less likely to even put a dent in your day. Some people will become sick and sadly some will even die as many have already.

This is tragic, but a far greater tragedy will definitely occur if we stay locked up in our homes as our country crumbles around us.