If we all lived on Fisher Island, we’d be tested for COVID-19. Should our lives depend on ZIP code? | Editorial

Are we surprised that the wealthy residents of exclusive Fisher Island have purchased their own coronavirus test kits from another private institution to keep themselves and their employees safe?

No. As our state and federal governments have made clear, we are on our own.

According to the Miami Herald:

“Fisher Island — an exclusive enclave of multimillion-dollar condos and homes and one of the wealthiest ZIP codes in the country — has purchased thousands of rapid COVID-19 blood test kits from the University of Miami Health System for all of its residents and workers.

The private island, set along Government Cut and nestled between Miami and Miami Beach and accessible only by boat or helicopter, worked out a deal with UHealth to make the tests available to the 800 or so families that live there, and all the workers who maintain the property and patrol its streets.”

The cost was not revealed, but it likely was a pretty penny. After all, the average annual income on the island was $2.5 million in 2015.

The concern should not be that a community is taking care of its own, including employees. Makes sense. But, rather, it highlights the kind of societal inequity that makes Bernie Sanders’ blood boil. Others’, too.

But from the start of this pandemic, an obvious class system emerged regarding who could get tested early in the game and who had to wait for a test — if they could get tested at all.

At one point, it seemed as if members of the public had to be at death’s door to be given a test. But celebrities, mavyors and famous athletes appeared to get them for the asking. Money talked, even while some government officials were still talking down the potential severity of the coronavirus.

Unfortunately, this gives the lie to the happy-face cliche that has floated to the surface in this time of the coronavirus: We’re all in this together.

Well, maybe not. Not when essential workers have fight their employers to get masks to do their jobs safely. Not when the governor deems wrestling as essential as a worship service. Not when African-American and Hispanic Americans have been hardest hit by COVID-19 because they’re more likely to be in poor health, or lack insurance, or unable to shelter in place. It’s almost comical when political leaders — too many of whom have been practicing medicine without a license — advise people with symptoms to call their primary-care doctor. Almost comical. In Florida, where lawmakers won’t expand Medicaid because their lives don’t depend on it, they don’t care that the default primary-care doctor for the poor is the costly and crowded emergency room.

This dichotomy is not new. The coronavirus has simply thrust it in front of our faces.

Here’s the real consequence:

The privilege of getting the test kits will save lives. For the not-so-rich, being denied testing early on for not meeting a set of criteria when they first asked has sometimes meant the disease progressed until it was too late to save them.

That won’t be the case for those who live and work on Fisher Island. Good for them.

This story was originally published April 14, 2020 at 1:51 PM.