Washington (CNN) In March, Madonna posted (and then deleted) a video of herself in a milk bath dusted with rose petals calling the global coronavirus pandemic the "great equalizer."

Fast-forward just a couple weeks, and that already disturbing way of thinking -- shared by a number of the rich and famous self-isolating while surrounded by opulence -- registers as downright unintelligible: It's abundantly clear that the virus is only deepening inequality in America.

Crucially, for many of these Americans, unemployment means more than the loss of a job -- it means the loss of employer-provided health insurance, too. This situation leaves them in vulnerable positions should they need to seek out testing or treatment for Covid-19, the disease caused by the virus.

"When white America catches a cold, black America catches pneumonia," Steven Brown, a research associate at the Urban Institute, a Washington-based think tank, told my CNN colleague Chauncey Alcorn