‘White-Collar Quarantine’ Over Virus Spotlights Class Divide

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Child care options, internet access and extra living space leave a gulf between rich and poor in coping with disruptions to school and work.

In some respects, the pandemic is an equalizer: It can afflict princes and paupers alike, and no one who hopes to stay healthy is exempt from the strictures of social distancing. But the American response to the virus is laying bare class divides that are often camouflaged — in access to health care, child care, education, living space, even internet bandwidth.

“This is a white-collar quarantine,” said Howard Barbanel, a Miami-based entrepreneur who owns a wine company. “Average working people are bagging and delivering goods, driving trucks, working for local government.”

“I do get that there are haves and have-nots,” said Carolyn Richmond, a Manhattan employment lawyer who is advising restaurant industry clients from her second home, on Long Island, as they engineer layoffs. “Do I feel guilty? No. But I do know that I am very lucky. I understand there’s a big difference between me and the people I work with every day.”

Zabar’s, the Upper West Side food emporium, will deliver an assortment of noshes for a $300 to $400, depending on the distance.

“I don’t even take a markup — it’s whatever the messenger service charges me,” said Scott Goldshine, the general manager. “Obviously, for most of the people out there getting these types of delivery, money is not an issue.”

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/27/busi ... e=Homepage
For about $80,000, an individual can purchase a six-month plan with Private Health Management, which helps people with serious medical issues navigate the health care system.

Such a plan proved to be a literal lifesaver as the coronavirus pandemic descended. The firm has helped clients arrange tests in Los Angeles for the coronavirus and obtained oxygen concentrators for high-risk patients.

“We know the top lab people and the doctors and nurses and can make the process efficient,” said Leslie Michelson, the firm’s executive chairman.

In some respects, the pandemic is an equalizer: It can afflict princes and paupers alike, and no one who hopes to stay healthy is exempt from the strictures of social distancing. But the American response to the virus is laying bare class divides that are often camouflaged — in access to health care, child care, education, living space, even internet bandwidth.

In New York, well-off city dwellers have abandoned cramped apartments for spacious second homes. In Texas, the rich are shelling out hundreds of thousands of dollars to build safe rooms and bunkers.

And across the country, there is a creeping consciousness that despite talk of national unity, not everyone is equal in times of emergency.

“This is a white-collar quarantine,” said Howard Barbanel, a Miami-based entrepreneur who owns a wine company. “Average working people are bagging and delivering goods, driving trucks, working for local government.”

Some of those catering to the well-off stress that they are trying to be good citizens. Mr. Michelson emphasized that he had obtained coronavirus tests only for patients who met guidelines issued by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, rather than the so-called worried well.

Still, a kind of pandemic caste system is rapidly developing: the rich holed up in vacation properties; the middle class marooned at home with restless children; the working class on the front lines of the economy, stretched to the limit by the demands of work and parenting, if there is even work to be had.

“I do get that there are haves and have-nots,” said Carolyn Richmond, a Manhattan employment lawyer who is advising restaurant industry clients from her second home, on Long Island, as they engineer layoffs. “Do I feel guilty? No. But I do know that I am very lucky. I understand there’s a big difference between me and the people I work with every day.”

Long before the new coronavirus, another kind of equalizer was being promoted: the internet. For decades, tech evangelists cited the democratizing power of the World Wide Web, which they said would bring high-quality services to strata of society that had previously gone without them.

Some of those predictions have come to pass. In recent days, time spent on the site of the Khan Academy, a well-regarded online curriculum that is free, is up about two and a half times from this time last year.

In March, the federal government broadened its coverage of so-called telemedicine services through Medicare, giving many more people access to a doctor over the web.

Still, the technology that makes these services accessible remains out of reach for many Americans. While data on internet access is inexact, the most recent Federal Communications Commission figures, from 2017, showed that 30 percent of households did not have even a slow broadband connection.

Jessica Rosenworcel, a Democratic member of the commission, said millions of Americans had only phones, often with strict caps on data usage. “Imagine using a mobile device to look up your class work, type out a paper,” she said. “No parent would choose that as the primary tool for their child’s learning.”

Like many districts around the country, the Brownsville Independent School District in Texas sought to transfer much of its curriculum online when it closed its doors this week. Schools encouraged students to use digital platforms like Google Classroom, Apple Teacher and Seesaw to keep up with their studies.

But unlike wealthier areas, Brownsville has notoriously spotty internet access. Nearly half of households there lacked broadband in 2018, putting it at the top of a list of worst-connected cities compiled by the National Digital Inclusion Alliance, an advocacy group. “We’re limited when it comes to online services in our community,” said the district’s superintendent, René Gutiérrez. “It’s not where it needs to be.”

The situation has sent many families scrambling. Anahi Rubio, 11, and her mother just moved into an apartment that lacks an internet connection. Anahi has struggled with balky access while using a laptop at her aunt’s house, where she couldn’t get the videoconferencing app Zoom to work.

“They’re always telling you to use YouTube to learn multiplication, or to look something up on Google,” said her mother, Betsy Rubio. “Online, everybody gets to be on the same page. But if not everyone has good internet, like my daughter, you don’t. I’m concerned about her falling behind.”

And internet access is far from the only challenge confronting the less affluent. Marc Perrone, the president of the United Food and Commercial Workers, which represents over one million workers in industries like groceries and meatpacking, said child care was a top concern when the union held a telephone town hall this week with about 5,000 supermarket workers in New York State.

“In some cases, if they’re old enough, they’re latching them — becoming latchkey kids,” Mr. Perrone said, alluding to the option of leaving a child home alone.

Until a few weeks ago, Darlyne Dagrin would drop her 22-month-old son off at a day care facility on her way to work at a nursing home in Cedar Grove, N.J. But the center has closed temporarily amid the pandemic, leaving her with no choice but to skip work when she can’t find a friend or relative to care for him.

“This week I called out twice,” Ms. Dagrin said Wednesday. “They called me and said: ‘We won’t accept no more callouts. If you call out again you’re out of a job.’” She said she didn’t know what she was going to do for the rest of the week.

Unlike Ms. Dagrin, Maggie Russell-Ciardi doesn’t have to choose between going to work and providing child care for her young child. A nonprofit consultant in New York City and part-time yoga teacher, Ms. Russell-Ciardi can slot work around her 3-year-old son’s sleep and play schedule — even if it sometimes requires waking up in the wee hours — and simply makes do when he’s awake and active.

“It’s better for me to do my own practice when he’s sleeping,” she said of the yoga classes she now teaches online. “But it’s nice to have him growing up feeling like he’s part of the yoga community even if it’s now a virtual one. It’s an important teaching for him.”

The ability of the middle class to quickly shift life online has been striking. The Brooklyn Conservatory of Music, where roughly 100 faculty members on site teach several hundred students each week, has shifted its entire music instruction to videoconferencing. Over 95 percent of the students enrolled in private lessons have resumed their classes since the school reopened online last Friday.

By contrast, said Dorothy Savitch, an administrator, the school operates a music education program in 25 local public schools, with large numbers of children below the poverty level. Ms. Savitch said about one-third of those children might take part when the program resumes online next week, though she hopes to reach 60 percent of them eventually.

But the middle class is not free of anxiety in this pandemic moment. Otherwise-privileged people have become acutely aware of the options they lack. “For the first time in my life, I feel the difference between myself and my more affluent friends,” said Deb Huberman, a freelance television producer living on the Upper East Side of Manhattan. “I desperately want to get out of the city but I can’t afford to rent something.”

Ms. Huberman estimates that half the neighbors in her building have fled to second homes. Many have joined other wealthy New Yorkers in the less densely populated East End of Long Island.

“I feel guilty about friends and colleagues who don’t have the ability to leave,” said Joe Bilman, who moved with his family from Park Slope in Brooklyn to his vacation house in East Hampton. “We knew it would be easier for us to isolate and be part of the quarantine. We have a backyard and the kids can go for bike rides.”

Hamptonites have often managed to recreate the amenities of home, except with more space and beachfront views. Many children enrolled in Manhattan prep schools continue to be taught by teachers in conventional classroom formats, albeit over the internet, while public schools have frequently substituted individual study with materials supplied online.

MyTennisLessons.com advertises that “coaches are continuing to give 1-on-1 lessons” and lists a few pros available in Hamptons ZIP codes. Zabar’s, the Upper West Side food emporium, will deliver an assortment of noshes for a $300 to $400, depending on the distance.

“I don’t even take a markup — it’s whatever the messenger service charges me,” said Scott Goldshine, the general manager. “Obviously, for most of the people out there getting these types of delivery, money is not an issue.”

At some summer retreats, like Martha’s Vineyard and the Jersey Shore, local officials have taken to discouraging second-home owners and renters for fear of overtaxing local infrastructure.

In other cases, the rich aren’t going east or west, but down. Gary Lynch, general manager of Rising S, a Texas maker of safe rooms and bunkers that range in price from $40,000 to several million dollars, said he had added a second shift of 15 workers to handle the flood of new orders, mostly for underground bunkers.

“I’ve never seen interest like there is now,” said Mr. Lynch, who has taken to turning his phone off at night so he can get some sleep. “It has not let up.”
It is an unfortunate human failing that a full pocketbook often groans more loudly than an empty stomach.

- Franklin D. Roosevelt

Re: ‘White-Collar Quarantine’ Over Virus Spotlights Class Divide

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lurker wrote: Fri Mar 27, 2020 7:36 pm
K9s wrote: Fri Mar 27, 2020 6:56 pm underground bunkers.
oh, gee, look! a hole and steps going down to a door. this looks like a good place to dump that pickup load of trash. you can get anything you want...
They have private planes and air fields (and yachts) so those bunkers will be far off the grid. Of course, if they don't work as advertised, who's gonna be left to sue?
geno wrote: Fri Mar 27, 2020 8:02 pm
K9s wrote: Fri Mar 27, 2020 7:35 pm
TrueTexan wrote: Fri Mar 27, 2020 7:11 pm The wealthy may just need to remember there is reaction for every action, as they tell the rest of us to eat cake.
When there is no cake, we eat the rich.
I hear they taste like chicken!
Snakes do taste like chicken. :D
It is an unfortunate human failing that a full pocketbook often groans more loudly than an empty stomach.

- Franklin D. Roosevelt

Re: ‘White-Collar Quarantine’ Over Virus Spotlights Class Divide

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lurker wrote: Fri Mar 27, 2020 7:36 pm
K9s wrote: Fri Mar 27, 2020 6:56 pm underground bunkers.
oh, gee, look! a hole and steps going down to a door. this looks like a good place to dump that pickup load of trash. you can get anything you want...
And I said, "Yes, sir, Officer Obie, I cannot tell a lie, I put that envelope under that garbage."
"it's a goddamn impossible way of life"
"And so it goes"

Re: ‘White-Collar Quarantine’ Over Virus Spotlights Class Divide

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geno wrote: Fri Mar 27, 2020 8:09 pm
lurker wrote: Fri Mar 27, 2020 7:36 pm
K9s wrote: Fri Mar 27, 2020 6:56 pm underground bunkers.
oh, gee, look! a hole and steps going down to a door. this looks like a good place to dump that pickup load of trash. you can get anything you want...
And I said, "Yes, sir, Officer Obie, I cannot tell a lie, I put that envelope under that garbage."
:yahoo:
i'm retired. what's your excuse?

Re: ‘White-Collar Quarantine’ Over Virus Spotlights Class Divide

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Had to look that up.

https://www.commentarymagazine.com/davi ... t-garbage/
Syria, caught with its pants well below ankle-level and with the discovery of trace amounts of enriched uranium at the bombed site that the West claims was being built as a nuclear reactor, has now gone on record, claiming that the uranium was left there by Israeli bombs. Which reminds me of the moment in Arlo Guthrie’s classic song “Alice’s Restaurant,” when Officer Obie accuses him of dumping a large pile of garbage over a cliff, basing the accusation on having found his name at the bottom of the pile of garbage, and the singer replies, “Yes, sir, Officer Obie, I cannot tell a lie, I put that envelope under that garbage.”
It is an unfortunate human failing that a full pocketbook often groans more loudly than an empty stomach.

- Franklin D. Roosevelt

Re: ‘White-Collar Quarantine’ Over Virus Spotlights Class Divide

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CDFingers wrote: Sat Mar 28, 2020 9:28 am
K9s wrote: Fri Mar 27, 2020 7:35 pm
TrueTexan wrote: Fri Mar 27, 2020 7:11 pm The wealthy may just need to remember there is reaction for every action, as they tell the rest of us to eat cake.
When there is no cake, we eat the rich.
+1

CDFingers
+2

(BTW, CDF--I like your sig line--and remember the final verse:
Now God bless cowboys and God bless gold.
God bless my uncle, rest his soul.
He taught me well, boys, taught me all I know.
Taught me so well, that I grabbed the gold
and left him lying there by the side of the road!
"Even if the bee could explain to the fly why pollen is better than shit, the fly could never understand."

Re: ‘White-Collar Quarantine’ Over Virus Spotlights Class Divide

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I don't yet know which one is trump. I prefer it sung "and I left his dead ass there by the side of the road." I know the one I'd like to be trump. Time will tell.

In Jack Straw, we "dug for him a shallow grave and laid his body down." trump's fate is not one I'd care to share, I tell you whut.

CDFingers
Crazy cat peekin' through a lace bandana
like a one-eyed Cheshire, like a diamond-eyed Jack

Re: ‘White-Collar Quarantine’ Over Virus Spotlights Class Divide

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Some billionaires, bankers and other members of the U.S. elite are calm, others are getting anxious and everyone is washing their hands. But 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.” Tim Kruse, a doctor who makes house calls in Aspen, Colorado, said “the wealthy aren’t going to necessarily have access to things that the common person is not going to have access to.” But that hasn’t stopped them from asking if they can get their hands on a coronavirus vaccine. “The answer is no. They just want to know.”
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.”
https://time.com/5793806/wealthy-rich-p ... ronavirus/

Prince Charles, heir to the British throne tested positive for the virus. An article commented that the royals have a plan used over centuries of protecting the line of succession, separate family members. The Queen (93 yrs) and Philip (98 yrs) are at Windsor with a small staff; Charles and Camilla are in Scotland; William and Kate are in Norfolk; and Harry and Meghan are in Canada...
"Everyone is entitled to their own opinion, but not their own facts." - Daniel Patrick Moynihan

Re: ‘White-Collar Quarantine’ Over Virus Spotlights Class Divide

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K9s wrote: Fri Mar 27, 2020 7:35 pm
TrueTexan wrote: Fri Mar 27, 2020 7:11 pm The wealthy may just need to remember there is reaction for every action, as they tell the rest of us to eat cake.
When there is no cake, we eat the rich.
There might not be any Toilet paper around, plenty of pitchforks though.
Those who make peaceful revolution impossible, make violent revolution inevitable.

Re: ‘White-Collar Quarantine’ Over Virus Spotlights Class Divide

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kronkmusic wrote: Sun Mar 29, 2020 9:35 am We will find out years from now that conversations were had and less was done because they knew it would affect urban minorities who live in dense populations and rely on public transportation much more than it would affect wealthy white people. I can guarantee you that, I would bet my house on it.
Then in the history books, the blame will be placed on those immigrants and minorities for bringing and spreading the disease.
Facts do not cease to exist because they are ignored.-Huxley
"We can have democracy in this country, or we can have great wealth concentrated in the hands of a few, but we can't have both." ~ Louis Brandeis,

Re: ‘White-Collar Quarantine’ Over Virus Spotlights Class Divide

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TrueTexan wrote: Sun Mar 29, 2020 12:13 pm
kronkmusic wrote: Sun Mar 29, 2020 9:35 am We will find out years from now that conversations were had and less was done because they knew it would affect urban minorities who live in dense populations and rely on public transportation much more than it would affect wealthy white people. I can guarantee you that, I would bet my house on it.
Then in the history books, the blame will be placed on those immigrants and minorities for bringing and spreading the disease.
I wish that wasn't true.
It is an unfortunate human failing that a full pocketbook often groans more loudly than an empty stomach.

- Franklin D. Roosevelt

Re: ‘White-Collar Quarantine’ Over Virus Spotlights Class Divide

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K9s wrote: Sun Mar 29, 2020 12:54 pm
TrueTexan wrote: Sun Mar 29, 2020 12:13 pm
kronkmusic wrote: Sun Mar 29, 2020 9:35 am We will find out years from now that conversations were had and less was done because they knew it would affect urban minorities who live in dense populations and rely on public transportation much more than it would affect wealthy white people. I can guarantee you that, I would bet my house on it.
Then in the history books, the blame will be placed on those immigrants and minorities for bringing and spreading the disease.
I wish that wasn't true.
+; plus the fact that the densely populated areas are normally where the blue votes are concentrated
"it's a goddamn impossible way of life"
"And so it goes"

Re: ‘White-Collar Quarantine’ Over Virus Spotlights Class Divide

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lurker wrote: Tue Mar 31, 2020 2:18 pm i don't know many poor or ble-collar people who fly or go on cruise ships to foreign countries, so i'm pretty sure it wasn't poor or blue-collar people who brought covid19 to the US
You would be surprised. The bottom-line no-frills inside cabin for a one-week cruise can be just a few hundred dollars--21st century "steerage".

What's shocking is that there are 4 Royal Caribbean ships parked at RC's private island in the Bahamas, one of which, Oasis of the Seas has been barred from docking or allowing anyone off because a number of those on-board have the virus....but what is MORE shocking is that any IDIOT BOARDED a cruise ship in the last week or two! You just have to be a total imbecile and think you're immortal to do so!

Lots of spring-breakers do cruises. We were on the old Norway (formerly the France) during a "Spring Break" cruise and it was like "Animal House" with almost 2500 passengers. I saw more "Stupid pet tricks" from those college kids than I'd believe.
"Even if the bee could explain to the fly why pollen is better than shit, the fly could never understand."

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