These two coronavirus maps provide a terrifying glimpse of what’s coming
The shocking news that the U.S. economy lost more than 700,000 jobs in March should focus our minds on the possibility of a catastrophic confluence of factors — one that is neatly captured in two maps.
What’s coming is a kind of perfect storm, according to experts I spoke with: Soaring unemployment risks pushing huge numbers of people into the ranks of the uninsured. Many of those people will probably seek Medicaid coverage, further straining state budgets.
Add into that combustible mix a coming wave of coronavirus cases, and you have what health economist Austin Frakt described to me as a “looming catastrophe.”
taken from cellphone data
The next shows the status of Medicaid expansion
“It’s a perfect storm,” Judy Solomon, a senior fellow at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, told me. “Those are the areas where the next spikes will likely occur, like what we’re seeing in New York.”
But, Solomon continued, in New York, people have much more access to health coverage than people in these parts of the South. “This will multiply the harms we’ve already seen in those states,” Solomon said.
“What it means is a lot more hardship, health problems and death,” Frakt, the health economist, told me. Frakt noted that the virus is now likely to spread in those regions, which will dovetail in a terrible way with the failure to expand Medicaid.
