One apparent silver lining to coronavirus is that it is a “great equaliser”, as New York’s governor, Andrew Cuomo, put it.
Covid-19 can strike Wall Street executives and janitors alike. But try telling that to Amazon’s workforce. Several of its employees have been fired for voicing fears about exposure to the virus. Amazon’s workers are being treated like “fungible units of pick-and-pack potential,” said Tim Bray, a senior Amazon engineer who this week resigned in protest. Meanwhile, Jeff Bezos, the company’s chief executive, earned an estimated $149,353 a minute before the pandemic struck, three times the annual US median income. Amazon’s revenues have soared since then.
We heard a lot about how jet-setters were as exposed to infection as the rest in Covid-19’s early weeks. Whether it was Hollywood star Tom Hanks or Britain’s Prince Charles, the initial impression was of the pathogen’s blind egalitarianism. The lockdown changed all that.