London (AFP)
On a yacht or in a mansion, worried about their wine cellar or their interior outfits, the ultrariches live a golden confinement, which provokes sarcasm at a time when many are sick or lose their jobs.
"The sunset last night ... isolated in the Grenadines avoiding the virus. I hope everyone remains safe," wrote US media mogul David Geffen on his Instagram account in late March.
Just above her message, a photo of a huge yacht sailing in calm waters with wide paradise islands in the Antilles.
This testimony, which sparked an avalanche of indignant comments on social networks, speaks volumes about the inequalities highlighted by the coronavirus crisis.
While some publish photos worthy of travel magazines during their golden confinement, others are confined in small spaces, not to mention the often precarious employees of hospitals, public transport or food stores, who potentially expose themselves to the virus to make operate essential services.
Some have rushed to dream residences in the countryside or by the sea aboard private jets, so that the specialized company PrivateFly has observed a jump in the reservations of people wanting to leave countries at risk, according to The Guardian.
Others simply choose to invest in underground shelters, as told by the Los Angeles Times the Texan company Rising S Bunkers, whose phone keeps ringing.
- Shelter with jacuzzi -
Its "Aristocrat" model offers for $ 8.35 million a gym, sauna, swimming pool, jacuzzi, greenhouse garden and garage.
Once the wealthy have found their place of containment, they must start with daily tasks, which sometimes turn into a puzzle.
"For the wealthy, a dilemma: quarantine with the staff or taking care of their household chores themselves", wondered on April 16 the Wall Street Journal, daily newspaper of the American business world.
And the article cites the example of a manager of a New York financial company who finds himself calling his personnel management agency because he could not remove the bag from his vacuum cleaner.
"How to spend it", literally "How to spend it", the venerable Financial Times weekly glossy supplement, makes it a point to think of all the "problems" faced by its least needy readers.
He is particularly interested in this renowned London wine merchant Berry Bros & Rudd who sold all of his finest Bordeaux wines, at 150 pounds each.
"When the confinement started, I opened some of my best bottles as if the world was going to end," said a person confined to Provence.
Some even take the opportunity to refurbish their wine cellar, as evidenced by the record activity of Spiral Cellars, in the chic residential district of Wimbledon in south London.
And the magazine calls on its readers not to neglect their interior attire, recommending the most luxurious dressing gowns, from Dolce & Gabanna or the London brand Hamilton & Hare.
- Fewer billionaires? -
And even confined and without much activity, billionaires have enriched themselves since the beginning of containment, says the American research center Institute for Policy Studies.
Between March 18 and April 10, the wealth of American billionaires increased by almost 10%, earning $ 282 billion, mainly thanks to the stock market rebound of their companies, like Jeff Bezos, boss of Amazon, or Elon Musk at head of electric car maker Tesla.
Some of them redeem a good conscience like the founder and boss of Twitter, Jack Dorsey, who gives a billion dollars to participate in the fight against the pandemic, or Jeff Bezos, first fortune in the world, who donated $ 100 million to US food banks.
But Forbes says, however, that the crisis is starting to weigh down and has already contributed to a drop in the number of billionaires worldwide, to 2,095 in 2020 against 2,153 in 2019.
This list also welcomes for the first time Eric Yuan, general manager of the American videoconferencing application Zoom, very popular during the "lockdown".
"The wealthiest in the world are not immune to the devastating impact of the coronavirus," says Kerry Dolan, a journalist with Forbes.
© 2020 AFP