The coronavirus has left no facet of our life as Americans untouched. It has swept across our country and left over 100,000 Americans dead, close to double the number of people that were killed in action in the Vietnam War. Millions of Americans have contracted the virus, and on May 22nd, the number of new cases was 23,912, and these are only the reported cases. The economic impact has been equally dire, with Great Depression levels of unemployment and a plummeting stock market resulting from the virus.
This disease didn’t start here, it didn’t come here first, so why has it hit America the hardest? The answer lies with denial and a lack of preparation from our government. President Donald Trump has not been the calm and collected leader America needs at this time. Some examples of this include his suggestion that scientists look into injecting people with disinfectant and his tweeting over a hundred times during a single day, trying to target former President Barack Obama over something unrelated to the pandemic rather than focusing on the current situation.
President Trump has also recently returned to golfing, a favorite pastime of his, spending some time on the course while America is being overwhelmed by a pandemic the likes of which nobody alive has seen. There was no perfect response to this pandemic, and things were always going to be bad, but there were actions that could have been taken that would have helped our country combat this crisis.
Trump has taken pride in pointing out his travel ban from China, the country where the virus originated. However, by the time he had banned travel from China, the disease had spread to other countries from which travel was not banned. It is now evident that travel from any other country, with some exceptions for Americans returning home, should have been banned.
The Trump Administration continually made the mistake of taking China’s word about the spread of the pandemic, even when their own intelligence officials contradicted that information. As a result, Trump continually downplayed the severity of the situation, making it appear as though the spread was under control. Those who placed their trust in the President were given sunny reports about our testing capabilities and hospital preparedness, even as he waited weeks to put the Defense Production Act into effect to make the supplies we need to combat the virus.
Another fault of the government’s response was the uncoordinated closing of businesses. The majority of closing decisions were left up to the states, and the combination of a lack of coordination and little funding for the state and local governments to which the problem fell, created and continues to create problems. State governments will need to cut costs if they do not receive aid. This means that state employees (teachers, firefighters, police officers) could be laid off en masse.
The responsibility for the relief lies with Congress; the Republican-controlled Senate has been rejecting any new proposal for aid to state and local governments. After their original grant of 217 billion, an amount that won’t last for the duration of the pandemic, the Republicans are refusing to take further action. In fact, discussion of more aid has been halted altogether. The Democrat-controlled House has approved a new bill for relief but the Senate has since rejected it.
All in all, the American government has not risen to the challenge that the pandemic posed. They failed to take advantage of our advanced warning and manufacturing capabilities, and as a result, both the economy and the people are suffering. When history evaluates this dark time, it will undoubtedly indicate our leaders displayed incompetence during a time when strong leadership was needed most.