The Chamber of Commerce use to have an exercise which involved dividing a group of people into three groups. My friend told me about this. She participated in the exercise. One group was defined as the wealthy, the second as the teachers and health workers and the third as the poor. The wealthy were allowed access to coffee and a table of pastries that were in the room. It was determined that the wealthy could invite others to the food and drink if they wished.
And then the three groups were sent to three different rooms to assess how they wanted the exercise to "evolve" based on their qualities. When the poor group made it into the room, they discovered an empty room. No chairs, no tables.
When the groups again reconvened, the person monitoring the exercise asked what everyone determined. Mostly, questions were asked to get a full understanding of their group's power and ability or limitations. The monitor answered their questions, explaining that there were consequences to their decisions. And then the monitor told them that they were to go back into their respective room to determined what would happen next. When the poor group got up, they stole the chairs in the conference room to have something to sit on.
When the groups again reconvened, the wealthy group had penalties set up for the poor for stealing the chairs. They seemed to enjoy using their power to inflict hardships on the other groups. They even withheld food from the poor eventually "killing" a few from starvation.
I don't know where the pandemic twist came in, but the wealthy were so annoyed with the poor group that they tied the hands of the health service group from helping the poor to ensure that they would only provide assistance to the wealthy.
By the end of the day, only the members of the wealthy group survived.
Which, I might add, would not really happen that way because viruses don't discriminate based on financial portfolios.
The Chamber of Commerce said that of all the times they conducted the exercise they had never seen such dire results. That was in the nineties and that kind Highlander exhibition reflected what I felt was going on in my community.
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