One could easily argue that COVID-19 has no respect for social status. Yet, that argument fails to account for the differences that social status affords those in their effort to avoid the virus. While being of a higher status might not help you if you catch the disease, it does give you the opportunity to more easily avoid it in the first place. Take, for example, New York City residents. At the height of the outbreak, people in wealthier sections of the city fled to the Hamptons, Martha’s Vineyard, and even Hawaii, while poorer residents could not afford that option. Similarly, when the vaccine became available, wealthy patients tried to pay to get to the front of the line so that they could get their shot first (CNNWire 2021; Kingson 2020; Quealy 2020).