What's behind the crisis in Detroit?

At time of publication, only ten countries in the world have surpassed Michigan in their total number of COVID-19 deaths. Michigan, a state with a population of less than 10 million people, has exceeded Canada’s number of cases confirmed today. Wayne County, which houses Detroit, has surpassed the entire state of California in total number of deaths, and has nearly eclipsed Brazil as well. At Sinai-Grace Hospital in Detroit, images have recently surfaced of human bodies being stored in vacant hospital rooms, stacked atop each other due to lack of space. At least two people in that hospital have died waiting in the emergency room hallways. The Oakland County Medical Examiner’s Office is considering using ice rinks in the Metro Detroit area as provisional morgues. Over one million people have applied for unemployment, placing the joblessness rate at 25 percent – the highest in the nation. How, in a major city in the richest country ever to exist in human history, could this happen?