Fauci asks for social responsibility against the covid-19 1:13
(CNN) - While President Donald Trump is obsessed with his hopes for reelection in his White House bubble, state and local leaders are frantically reversing the state reopens he demanded, making the United States the biggest point. of the world's coronavirus.
When the emergency rooms filled up and the virus accelerated its relentless march through the southern and western states, Trump clung to the fiction that the worst is over: “We had to close; now we are opening, "the president said of the economy at the White House, patting himself on the back for saving" millions of lives. "
As new cases of the disease hit 60,000 a day across the country, many leaders, including those who supported Trump's aggressive approach, now have little choice but to prioritize science over policy, leaving the president out of business. contact with reality.
Is Trump interested in Latin American politics? 1:33In Texas, Houston Democratic Mayor Sylvester Turner proposed a two-week shutdown, days after Republican Gov. Greg Abbott raised the possibility of stricter measures after issuing a mandate to wear masks that offended conservative orthodoxy. West Virginia called for the bars in the hardest hit county to close.
In California, Democratic Governor Gavin Newsom ordered all interior restaurants, wineries, movie theaters, zoos, museums to close, and closed all bars. Los Angeles and San Diego said students would start the new school year online only. Oregon banned gatherings of more than 10 people indoors due to an "alarming increase" in covid-19 cases in the state. KFC encouraged its franchises in Florida, Texas, Oklahoma and California to stop customer service at the restaurant.
Florida, which set the record for any state for new cases in just one day on Saturday, now has more covid-19 cases than all but eight entire countries.
Florida overflows with covid-19 infectionsThe image is of a nation that is beginning to shut down again in defiance of the president's triumphant but misleading claims that a "transition to greatness" is underway. The restrictions imposed on cities as large as Houston and Los Angeles could delay the surprising resurgence of the economy last month.
The modest job gains, announced by the president, could turn into permanent job losses.
In comments that are likely to further infuriate Trump, who is complaining to the press by Dr. Anthony Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases said what is unfortunately becoming an obvious point: quick openings have caused a disaster.
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"That is very clear - and we know this from countries around the world - if you physically separate people, to the point of not allowing the virus to be transmitted ... we know we can do it if we close," Fauci said in a webinar at Stanford Medical School.
"We don't close completely, and that's why, when we went up, we started going down, and then we stabilized at a really high level: about 20,000 infections a day," Fauci said. "Then when we started to reopen, we started to see the waves that we are seeing today, as we speak, in California ... in Arizona, in Texas, in Florida and in several other states."
New York and Massachusetts have difficult lessons
There are some good points. For the first time in months, there were no covid-19 deaths in New York City in a 24-hour period, a moment of release that Democratic Mayor Bill de Blasio called "flashy and moving." Massachusetts announced that its seven-day average of positive tests had dropped to 1.7%, 94% less since mid-April.
The lesson for states now at the center of the storm, which preempted the United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention guidelines on safe reopening, is sobering. New York and Massachusetts have accomplished what could still be just a temporary truce with the coronavirus with weeks of blockages and a strict reopening process that waited for the infection curve to be properly suppressed before restrictions were lifted.
Even now, there is no guarantee that the virus will not return to dangerous levels when normal life recovers.
None of this seems to have leaked to Trump. As always, the President was obsessed with what the latest events meant to him, especially when he was quick to demand that all children return to school despite having no plan on how to make their return safe.
On Monday, in yet another display of his self-absorption, he turned the current acute social complication of the pandemic into an accusation that his political enemies wanted to keep children trapped at home to harm him.
"I think they think it will be better for them if they can keep schools closed in elections. I don't think it's going to help them, frankly, but I think keeping schools closed is a bad thing for the country and so that's a good thing for them, "Trump said.
What really matters to Trump
The president did something similar earlier in the day, when he highlighted a tweet from Chuck Woolery, the host of dating show “Love Connection” who warned that “everyone is lying” about the severity of the current crisis, only to “prevent the economy come back, which has to do with elections. ”
It is unclear whether most Americans caught up in an endless national nightmare are more concerned with an election, especially one that faded into the background and is still more than three months away. Parents want to know if their children can start learning again. The unemployed want to get their jobs back. The country wants to get its life back before the virus.
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Trump's obsession with his own political perspectives has been the driving force of his administration and is a recurring theme. Its national agenda is designed almost exclusively to reward its most loyal and radical voters, and its foreign policy is geared toward creating eye-catching photos with the president in the lead role.
It is an Achilles heel that led to the ignominy of becoming the third president to be impeached, for abusing his power by trying to force a foreign nation, Ukraine, to interfere in 2020 to harm his opponent. .
But now it is possible that while still behind Biden in the pre-election polls, the president's impatience for the economy to grow again may turn into a fatal political failure. And it has the potential to condemn his dreams of a second term, as it made the situation worse.
The reopening of schools is crucial to the return of the economy and to the impression that the United States has regained the normal life that Trump is trying to transform into an electoral message of "transition to greatness." Until children are in school full time, many parents who have trouble finding child care cannot return to work, depriving America's economic engine of its full capacity.
But Trump characteristically ignores complicated questions, such as how to ensure that a massive return to school does not escalate the pandemic, as it only considers what's best for him.
When asked Monday what he thought about New York and Los Angeles, which delayed the start of a new school year and the death of an Arizona teacher who died of covid-19 after teaching at summer school, Trump replied: "Yes. Schools should open. Schools should be opened… You are losing many lives by keeping things closed. ”