The toll is disastrous: the United States is the country with the most deaths in the world, nearly 140,000, almost twice as much as the next country, Brazil (nearly 78,000) According to some forecasts, the balance sheet could approach, or even exceed 200,000 dead at the time of the election in early November. The number of Covid-19 infections per day, which was still 37,000 on June 24, has more than doubled and the number of deaths, which has been steadily decreasing until last week, has increased again, more than 750 per day.
The scenes of what is happening in Florida, the new epicenter, and in Texas for example, remind Americans of the worst moments of the pandemic in New York. In Houston, some hospitals are overwhelmed and refrigerated trucks were requisitioned to strengthen the capacity of the morgues, as in New York in March. In just one county in Texas, 81 babies under the age of one were tested positive this week ...
"Trump has wasted four months of sacrifices by the Americans," accuses Joe Biden, "by encouraging division and posing as an adversary of a very basic measure to protect each other," wearing the mask.
Wearing a mask and politicizing the pandemic
Ah, that mask! To date, the president persists in not wearing it. We only saw him once when he visited a hospital in Washington. This Sunday July 18 again, he justified himself thus on the Fox channel: "I want people to have a certain freedom and I do not believe that the problem would disappear if everyone wore a mask" ... Instead of being considered a measure of public health, as it has become in most countries of the world, the wearing of the mask represents here the symbol of the politicization of the pandemic and the division of the country, the self-proclaimed patriots persisting in refusing to wear it …
Watch: In new clip just released from Chris Wallace's Fox News Sunday interview with Trump, the President says he doesn't agree with the statement that if everyone wore a mask, everything would disappear. pic.twitter.com/HKRKUeuigA
- TV News HQ (@TVNewsHQ) July 17, 2020But beyond the controversy over the mask, it is Trump's whole strategy, or more precisely his lack of strategy, that is called into question. Now, more than 3 Americans out of 5 disapprove of his management of coronavirus ... All the flashing lights of his campaign have turned red and he has resolved to change campaign manager.
The president has long believed that he will be re-elected if the economy is running at full speed during the presidential election. From the start, he minimized the gravity of the crisis and rejected its management on the States. There was therefore no coordinated response at the national level, a big mistake. And when, in June, the infection curve finally started to flatten, Trump stepped in with force to get things back to normal as quickly as possible by reviving the economy and reopening schools. Against the advice of its main medical adviser, Doctor Anthony Fauci, sidelined.
Biden plays on velvet
"We are going to put a lot of pressure on the governors and all the others to open the schools", assured the president a few days ago. Confronted with such remarks, Joe Biden plays on velvet and urges caution. "Everyone wants schools to reopen," he said with his wife Jill, a retired teacher, on Friday. “But forcing teachers and students to return to class when infection rates are increasing or staying very high is very dangerous. And of course, Biden and his wife were both wearing the mask.
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The Democratic candidate plays the card of quiet competence and intervenes little, leaving the president to bury himself in often disjointed remarks. And Trump may well nickname him like "the corrupt Joe", "the sleeping Joe", "the sinister Joe", he continues to lose ground on his rival ...