In New York City, COVID-19 Is a Poor Man’s Disease

Chase Tralka crunched some number from New York City and came up with this:
There are some technical issues with using zip codes as a proxy for the income of individuals, but this is still striking. Those who are well off can isolate themselves pretty easily and avoid the worst effects of COVID-19. Those who aren’t well off, and have jobs that require their physical presence, are a lot more vulnerable.
This is also a partial explanation for the high infection rate among African Americans. Aside from everything else, they have much lower median household incomes than whites ($40,000 vs. $70,000). All by itself that makes a big difference, and outside of New York City it makes an even bigger difference than this chart suggests.