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If you are a member of one of the approximately 800 households living on the fishing island of Fisher Island, outside Miami, Florida, you can tell everyone you have “the richest ZIP code in the United States.”
Past and current residents include movies and TV profiles like Oprah Winfrey, Susana Giménez, and Sharon Gless, tennis stars Caroline Wozniacki, André Agassi, and Boris Becker, and financial experts like Hasbro boss Alan Hassenfeld and billionaire Bharat Desai.
And with an average annual salary of NOK 22.7 million, one would think that the inhabitants of the island have access to most of what the good life can offer.
Outside of the island’s luxury homes, residents can enjoy private sandy beaches imported from the Bahamas, a private beach club, eight restaurants, a golf course, a spa, and 18 tennis courts, according to Business Insider.
There are reportedly few places in the world where more money is collected in fewer square feet than on Fisher Island. One of the island’s residents, real estate agent Elena C. Bluntzer, tells the Miami Herald that the island has the highest concentration of billionaires in the entire United States.
The only arrival to the island is by boat or helicopter. The limited approach ensures that residents can largely live protected lives.
But then came the coronavirus.
Eliminated for crown tests
In mid-April, it emerged that the island had secured the antibody test for all its inhabitants. The Miami Herald newspaper reported that all 800 families living on the island, as well as anyone who works there, should be tested to see if they have developed antibodies to the coronavirus.
The University of Miami, which sold the tests totaling more than $ 300,000, stated at the time that they were selling these tests according to their clinical standards “intended to meet the health needs of all sections of the community we serve “
– However, we realize that it may have created the impression that certain societies have medical priority. That was not our intention.
The university also notes that one of the first confirmed cases of coronavirus in the region was on Fisher Island, where more than half of its population is over the age of 60.
– These factors were taken into account when we received the request.
However, it was noted that these tests ended on the private luxury island, at a time when such tests were not available.
– While the wealthy on Fisher Island are being tested, others are dying. A perverse example of how the wealthy exploit the system, Miami Herald journalist Julie K. Brown writes in a link to the newspaper headline about the case in twitter.
I received emergency help
The turmoil surrounding the news had so far lessened when it became clear that the island had been granted a request for emergency funds along with the crown pandemic.
The island’s largest community interest group, the Fisher Island Community Association (FICA), received $ 2 million in emergency funding from the US authorities.
The money would come from a scheme called the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP), which will help small and medium-sized businesses stay afloat during the crisis.
After the matter was resolved by the local media and later attracted national attention in the United States, residents of Rich Island voted unanimously to receive the loan.
Under the scheme, companies will be granted a loan that is used to pay employees’ wages, and which is intended as an incentive to keep employees on the job, rather than making layoffs or layoffs.
The Reichmann FICA Association, which protects the island’s facilities, should not have laid off a single employee, according to NBC News.
– Our country is going through a difficult time right now. This is not the time for elite looting, but to save small businesses, says Matt Barnes, one of the island’s residents who refused to accept the loan, he told the news website.
This case was first published in Dagbladet and Børsen.
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