The rich are different than you and me

Well, last Friday I posted about how us little guys are preparing for coronavirus by buying up all the Purell and masks in the world. But I guess it's not all entirely bought up, as my sister Trish just saw that two 8 oz. bottles of Purell are still available for $380.00. 

When we're not on our futile buying sprees so that we can save our newly converted to obsessive handwashing selves, we're all ears for the assurances and hunches our trusted and genius president is offering about the pandemic. Aren't we fortunate that there's so much expertise rolled up into one man? As long as we aren't one of the thousands of cruisers marooned offshore on the Grand Princess, stuck in their cabins until further notice. Or one of the millions of older folks in nursing homes waiting for the Angel of Death to blow in. 

But while we the people are doing what we're doing to stay safe, those on a different economic tier have their own thing going.

Gwyneth Paltrow wasn't going to be denied a visit to Paris Fashion Week, so she flew - commercial, I surprisingly believe - wearing a mask. But not one of those tawdry, flimsy ones you get at the drugstore. With ever the eye out for something that she might want to stock on Goop, Gwyneth was sporting an Airinium, which goes for $69 and $99 online and in the MoMA Design Store. If only it weren't sold out. Admittedly, those prices don't put the mask out of consideration for most folks. What price health? Plus the Airinium looks chic compared to the lower-cost alternatives. And it does feature "five layers of filtration and an 'utrasmooth and skin-frendly finish.'" But, while I could afford an Airinium, I'd rather contribute the $69/$99 on ActBlue to some worthy candidate for public office.

Some of what the richie-riches are buying up are, like the Airinium, upscalier, stylin'-er versions of what the rest of us buy. There's the Byredo luxury hand sanitizer - "notes of pear and bergamot" for $35 a spritz. Or Olika's "hand sanitizer shaped like a modernist baby chick", which aren't crazily expensive. How not crazily expensive are they? Let's it put it this way, family members can expect one in their Easter baskets this year. Thanks, richie-riches. If the NY Times wasn't doing an article on how you're all coping, I never would have come across these. 

Although for most folks, the price of an Airinium, or even those bergamot hand sanitizers, is more or less within reach if not reason, for those filling the ranks of the fashionistas, the influencers - which, now that I think of it, sounds a bit like "influenzas" - and the just plain rich, there are plenty of ways to separate us from them.

Business executives are ditching first class for private planes. Jet-setters are redirecting their travel plans to more insular destinations. 

Some wealthy people have told Bloomberg News that they have been staying in their Hamptons homes and are prepared to jet off to cabins in Idaho if things get worse. And The Guardian reported that executives have chartered jets for “evacuation flights” out of China and other affected areas.

For some private jet companies, fear equals opportunity. Southern Jet, a charter jet company in Boca Raton, Fla., recently sent out a limited test marketing email with the tag line: “Avoid coronavirus by flying private … Request a quote today!”  (Source: NY Times)

Of course, you won't be avoiding coronavirus if someone else on the flight has been exposed. I'd hate to have forked over tens of thousands of bucks for a flight, only to hear a dry, hacking cough emanating from the cockpit.

While coronavirus is boosting the private jet industry, yacht rentals are also seeing an uptick in interest. Jennifer Saia is president of a Newport, RI-based yacht charter agency. 

“It totally makes sense,” Ms. [Jenniver] Saia said. “You’re keeping your family contained in a very small, should-be-clean environment. And going from your car to your F.B.O.” — meaning fixed base operator, or private jet terminal — “to your private jet right onto the tarmac. And from there, right onto your yacht, and not having to deal with the public.”

I've just finished watching the fabulous HBO miniseries Succession, which follows the intra-family maneuvering among the members of an ultra-ultra media empire family (think Murdochs), all jockeying for control of the company if and when the paterfamilias steps down. There's not one member of this family with one iota of likability, but for best nicknames ever, "Shiv" (short for Siobhan, the only daughter) makes the short list. 

Anyway, the Roy family travels exclusively by private: limos drop them off a few feet from their private helicopters and jets and, in one of the best episodes, the family gets together on an unbelievably luxe yacht (with helicopter landing pad) off the coast of Croatia. No coronavirus, for the Roys, although one might argue that they have their own bespoke virus to contend with. It may not come from pangolins - or wherever coronavirus sprung from - but whatever's epidemic in this family is nearly fatal in its own little way. 

Concierge medical memberships are also seeing increased interest, and - let's face it - who wouldn't want to avoid a trip to the ER if they could afford it. 

But others are going one step further: isolation bunkers:

...an heiress in Southampton, N.Y., built a medical isolation room complete with a ventilation system.

The word “room,” however, hardly captures it...it is equipped with a negative pressure system to restrict the circulation of pathogens, and is basically an isolated guest wing consisting of a bedroom and kitchen stocked with IV hydration, medicines, lab supplies, gloves, gowns, masks, oxygen and food, as well as a set of dishes and linens.

Maybe novel coronavirus is the big one that the survivalists, the doomsday preppers, have been prepping for. Maybe we're all in danger of being wiped out. Maybe the melting premafrost is going to unleash all sorts of billion-year-old threats that our fragile modern little selves just can't deal with. Maybe we are all doomed. If that's the case, I don't think it will matter much whether you've got a Airinium mask a la Gwyneth Paltrow, or are scooting around the world in private luxury. 

Personally, I don't think this is the big one.  If it is, I hope I go quickly. If it's not, well, let's just say I'll be happy when those Oilika modernist baby chick hand sanitizers do show up on my doorsteps. I just hope no mad-arse survivalist - rich or poor -  kills me for them.

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A tip of the Pink Slip hazmat suit - and, of course, a bottle or two of Olika - to my sister Kath for sending this article my way.