Day-to-day life in the United States is starting to be upended. The coronavirus outbreak is now officially a pandemic. And as the deadly virus spreads, the irrational injustices of our marketized health care system are being exposed and the urgency of Medicare for All laid bare.

We don’t have complete information about the new coronavirus (COVID-19), but it appears to hit hard and fast. Up to 60 percent of adults around the world may become infected within a year. The global mortality rate currently sits at around 3.6 percent. There are no vaccines yet, and no known cures. In the United States, there are now over a thousand confirmed cases and at least thirty-eight deaths. Both numbers are expected to skyrocket: experts say confirmed cases will likely double every six days, which would mean a million cases by the end of April. This is not the flu.

As hospitals, doctors, and nurses are placed under increasing strain, it will only get worse. Severe cases require hospitalization for weeks, but the United States only has an estimated 300,000 unoccupied beds nationwide. Some hospitals are already running out of face masks. Outside of the United States, medical workers have begun triaging care — deciding who gets a bed, who has to sit in the hallway without oxygen, and even who will live and die.