By 10 April the COVID-19 pandemic seemed to have peaked in Spain and Italy but was still spreading alarmingly in the UK, which looked likely to end up with the worst death toll in Europe. On that day, tabloids in the UK picked up the story of a wealthy banker in London chartering a private Embraer Legacy 600 jet to fly him and six other middle-aged men and three young women to Marseille-Provence Airport.
There they were to transfer to three helicopters to fly them to a luxury £25,000-a-night villa complex near Nice. Instead, they were met by French police at the airport and told to leave, whereupon the leader of the group replied, “I have money, let’s talk.” This was to no avail, and they all departed, nine back to the UK and one to Berlin.
This was an extreme response of wealth to the virus: many other initiatives have been much more positive. Even so, when the crisis eventually eases governments will have huge debts to pay as they try to rejig their economies. In a more perfect world they would lean heavily towards a global green economy, but that is a case still to be argued and won. In the immediate future the question is much more one of where the money will come from.
