“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.”
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.”
Davos Nightmare
Trump has predicted the virus will disappear “like a miracle,” while Democrats outlined demands for funding that include a guarantee of an affordable vaccine. Face masks don’t effectively prevent the public from catching coronavirus, according to U.S. Surgeon General Jerome Adams, though health-care providers are at risk if they can’t get them. “Seriously people,” Adams wrote on Twitter, “STOP BUYING MASKS!”
Jewel Mullen, associate dean for health equity at the University of Texas at Austin’s Dell Medical School, said millions of Americans can’t afford to stock up on supplies, miss work or have a steady doctor to call for advice -- even on a good day.
“Resources like money and transportation and information give people head starts on protective and preventive measures, and can help create more comfortable scenarios for people to cope with disasters,” said Mullen, an internist and epidemiologist who was commissioner of Connecticut’s Department of Public Health. “That’s where you really get to see disparate needs.”
JPMorgan Chase & Co., the biggest bank in the U.S., stopped employees from going on any inessential business trips. It joined a string of other corporate giants in restricting travel, splitting up teams and traders to different locations, or quarantining staff. Jamie Dimon, the bank’s chief executive officer, said not long before the announcement that he had dreamed he and other billionaires contracted the virus during 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.
--With assistance from Amanda Gordon.
This article was provided by Bloomberg News.