Elderly US voters: "I will vote for the Democrats, I would never have thought it possible"

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Trump throws a mask off the stage at an election rally in Florida

Photo: JONATHAN ERNST / REUTERS

Scott Richardson remembers exactly the day he first heard about the coronavirus.

It was January 2020, and a news site headlined, "Three people die of mysterious lung disease in Wuhan".

Richardson read the message on his cell phone - but he was no longer concerned.

Whatever had killed the people seemed far away then.

"But then more and more Chinese died," says Richardson.

The virus gradually spread around the world and also got closer and closer to the 64-year-old restaurant owner who lives in the eastern United States.

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Scott Richardson

Photo: Alexandra Rojkov

Richardson waited for the US government to take the virus seriously.

That the president called on people to stay home and avoid social contact.

But nothing like that happened.

At the end of February, Donald Trump claimed that Corona was "under control" and that the pathogen would go away on its own.

Richardson couldn't believe it.

"I asked myself: why is our government doing nothing? Didn't it see what was coming our way?"

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