The pandemic has unearthed and aimed a magnifying glass at a lot of American shortcomings. But when you pull back and take a broader view, many of the stories are all part of the same big story. NYT: Why Surviving the Virus Might Come Down to Which Hospital Admits You. “The likelihood of survival may depend in part on where a patient is treated. At the peak of the pandemic in April, the data suggests, patients at some community hospitals were three times more likely to die as patients at medical centers in the wealthiest parts of the city. Underfunded hospitals in the neighborhoods hit the hardest often had lower staffing, worse equipment and less access to drug trials and advanced treatments at the height of the crisis.”

+ OK, you’re thinking “I’ve heard this story of urban inequality and woe before.” But this story is not just happening in big cities. ProPublica: “Mabel Garcia went to the only emergency room in Texas County, Oklahoma, which didn’t have a drug for heart attacks and strokes. She was airlifted to a larger hospital that gave her the drug she needed, but it was too late. She suffered brain damage.” The stoked flames of the culture wars have convinced Americans from different regions, and from rural and urban America, that they are on opposing sides. The truth is that they are on the same side, and that side is getting screwed by the widening economic divide.

+ ABC: Extreme inequality was the preexisting condition. “As 45 million Americans lost their jobs, U.S. billionaires made $584 billion.”

+ Related: “So far, lawmakers have not passed any measure to increase pay for workers who were asked to keep going to work during a highly contagious health crisis. Some companies did create hazard, or ‘hero,’ pay — typically around $2 extra an hour or a one-time bonus. Most have since ended it. So those boosted unemployment checks have created a bizarre distortion in the labor market, where holding on to a job doesn’t guarantee being financially better off than losing one.” NPR: When Essential Workers Earn Less Than The Jobless.