Every pandemic has a silver lining. This week, we were spared the spectacle of Davos Man (and Woman) jetting into the Swiss ski resort in private planes to flaunt not just their outsized carbon footprints and matching unnumbered Swiss bank accounts but their presumed moral superiority as they lecture the rest of us about how our selfish budget holidays and daily car commutes are destroying the planet. For Homo davos and his ilk, of course, the pandemic has had a gold lining. The net worth of Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos has hit an all-time high of more than USD180 billion. He’s not the only one to have profited from the pandemic. The misguided response of most governments — ignoring cheap, effective generic treatments for Covid and imposing ruinous lockdowns — has directly exacerbated inequality. The rich got richer, particularly favoured big corporates and all those with white collar jobs and good housing who could work comfortably from home, especially those on government payrolls who enjoy rising wages and job security. The poor, on the other hand, got sicker and lost their jobs at a greater rate, especially if they were unlucky enough to work for small businesses who were forced to close for months while their big competitors laughed all the way to the bank.