COVID-19 is spreading most in gritty places where poorer people are forced to spend time — and the media rarely goes

• The coronavirus does not affect all people equally — and we are learning more about exactly how so.
• Data from The New York Times lists "clusters" of US infections, which are overwhelmingly based in prisons, nursing homes, and meat processing facilities.
• These are places we don't like to think about much, where people do not spend time by choice.
• It is another illustration of how people who are poor or otherwise marginalized have few options to avoid the coronavirus, and are suffering for it.
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It has been obvious for a while that the coronavirus pandemic does not affect all people equally.

Recent data from The New York Times gave the starkest picture yet about exactly how this works. They deserve a lot of credit for tracking the data this closely, a time-intensive and laborious process.

An interactive article details "clusters" around the US which have produced large numbers of verified coronavirus infections.

Here are the top 12, which account for between 2,200 and 250 cases each:

1. Marion Correctional Institution — Marion, Ohio 2,182
2. Pickaway Correctional Institution — Scioto Township, Ohio 1,641
3. Smithfield Foods pork processing facility — Sioux Falls, South Dakota, 1,095
4. USS Theodore Roosevelt — Guam 969
5. Cook County jail — Chicago, 940
6. Cummins Unit prison — Grady, Arkansas 911
7. Lakeland Correctional Facility — Coldwater, Michigan 819
8. Bledsoe County Correctional Complex — Pikeville, Tennessee 583
9. Harris County jail — Houston, Texas 488
10. Neuse Correctional Institution — Goldsboro, North Carolina 480
11. JBS USA meatpacking plant — Green Bay, Wisconsin 348
12. Butner Prison Complex — Butner, North Carolina 263

Even from these the trend is clear: workplaces and prisons. Outside of the top 12 there are also many nursing homes.

All are places where, in general, you have no choice but to be. Inmates are literally incarcerated, nursing home residents need the care, and meta factory workers need the paycheck.

The media does not love to spend time in those places — where the stories are grim and to some extent uniform.

We heard more about other, smaller hotspots: the Grand Princess cruise ship, a healthcare conference in Boston, and "travel in Europe" count for about 100 cases each. But these glamorous, media-friendly few are the exceptions.

Generally, the people in the significant clusters have been put there by forces beyond them, and are suffering for it.

Relatedly, it is becoming clearer that disadvantaged ethnic groups are also taking more than their fair share of the burden.

The spread of the virus is a scientific problem but also a socio-economic one. For now we only have glimpses (thanks to work like that from the Times) — but more will surely follow.