There’s Something COVID-19 Hotspot Countries Have in Common

Despite reports of a deadly virus tearing through Wuhan, China in December, Americans carried about their business unbothered. After all, deadly viruses seemed to many of us the plight of far off places that aren’t as ‘developed’ as we are — poor sanitation systems, lack of access to adequate health care, or a host of other things that both differentiated and protected us from such things…right?

First-world problems

Wrong. The so-called “developed” world has been much harder hit by the COVID-19 pandemic. Curiously, the virus seems to target wealthier countries — and there seems to be a correlation not just with wealth, but ties to the West.

Here’s a map from Our World in Data that shows coronavirus case distribution and density as of 6/16/2020:

Our World in Data

The common explanation for the higher concentration of cases in (for the most part) wealthier, westernized countries is that of course, more testing = more cases.

While it’s true that more developed countries have better infrastructure for mass testing (or so we thought), disparities in testing capacity do not account for…