The saying goes that money can’t buy you happiness, and I suppose that’s partly true.
It can’t buy a coronavirus vaccine, either, because one doesn’t exist, but having loads of cash at your disposal does make it somewhat easier to navigate what is quickly turning into a global pandemic.
John Oliver spent Sunday evening warning Americans, and the world, to start taking some precautions, and we’re watching closely as our own Department of Health readies itself for COVID-19.
America’s wealthiest folks have been busy, reports TIME, and that cash will be spent:
…the rich can afford to prepare for a pandemic with perquisites, like private plane rides out of town, calls with world-leading experts and access to luxurious medical care.
“It’s been a full-on war-room situation over here,” said Jordan Shlain, an internist and managing partner of Private Medical, a high-end concierge service. The company is procuring hundreds of full-body coverings for work that includes visits in San Francisco, Silicon Valley, Los Angeles and New York. “We have to beg, borrow or steal. Well, not steal — beg, borrow and pay.”
Another doctor in the uber-wealthy town of Aspen, Colorado, says that he has to fend off many requests for a vaccine.
There may actually be some rather intriguing offshoot employment for those who handle divorce proceedings:
Wealthy couples who aren’t used to actually spending time together are in for trouble, according to Mitchell Moss, who studies urban policy and planning at New York University.
“This is going to destroy the marriages of the rich,” said Moss. “All these husbands and wives who travel will now have to spend time with the person they’re married to.”
Oh, the horror.
Charles Stevenson, a multi-millionaire, says it may turn into every person for themselves:
“I don’t feel concerned at the moment — it’s not near me right now,” Stevenson said. “If people in the village have coronavirus, I’d get out of here.”
He’d fly to Idaho and close himself off in a cabin, he said, and his family could join him if they wanted. “That becomes a personal choice of theirs.”
Sheesh, Charles – that went from a three to a 10 really quickly. There’s definitely a movie in there somewhere, full of jokes about eating the rich.
Jamie Dimon, JPMorgan Chase & Co.’s CEO, said he actually had a dream about a bunch of billionaires catching the virus at January’s World Economic Forum in Switzerland:
“I had this nightmare that somehow in Davos, all of us who went there got it, and then we all left and spread it,” Dimon said during the bank’s annual investor day. “The only good news from that is that it might have just killed the elite.” His audience chuckled.
Always good to have a sense of humour about the demise of the global elite.
You can follow a real-time tracker of confirmed cases of the coronavirus here.
[source:time]
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