What does Europe think of the US leadership and action on Corona Virus? Here is a write-up, in English, by the German news magazine Der Spiegel. My excerpts here will not do justice to the article, so I suggest you check out the original.
www.spiegel.de/international/world/the-american-patient-how-trump-is-fueling-a-corona-disaster-a-024a5cc9-2c07-419a-a351-67837b47f6bb
The American PatientHow Trump Is Fueling a Corona DisasterDonald Trump’s disastrous crisis management has made the United States the new epicenter of the global coronavirus pandemic. The country is facing an unprecedented economic crash. Are we witnessing the implosion of a superpower? By DER SPIEGEL Staff
11.04.2020, 21:41 Uhr
By Kerstin Kullmann, Guido Mingels, Ralf Neukirch, Philipp Oehmke, René Pfister, Marc Pitzke und Michael Sauga...
Pictures from the 1930sNowhere is the coronavirus crisis as visible in the U.S. as at these food distribution centers. One Chicago food bank distributed over three tons of food in a single day. In Manhattan, the line for a soup kitchen extends for several blocks. If the scene were in black and white, one would have trouble distinguishing it from pictures from the 1930s.
When Donald Trump was sworn in as President three years ago, he pledged to give the nation pride and strength. "We will bring back our jobs,” Trump said in his inaugural address on Jan. 20, 2017. "We will bring back our wealth.” He even spoke of freeing the Earth from the "miseries of disease.” He said, "A new national pride will stir our souls, lift our sights, and heal our divisions.”
The pandemic is affecting every nation on the planet, but nowhere in the Western world has it brought to light shortcomings as relentlessly as it has in the United States. At the end of February, the American president claimed that his government was in complete control of the situation. But now the number of infected is approaching the 500,000-mark. Hospitals in New York, Detroit and New Orleans are barely able to cope with the onslaught of sick people.
...
And unlike in previous global crises, the U.S. is failing as a global leader. The country is currently too concerned with itself. Trump, as is so often the case, is trying to save himself
...
During his inaugural speech in January 2017, Trump also said: "America will start winning again, winning like never before.” Now the U.S. has become the problem child in the global battle against the virus. While China and South Korea have stopped the spread of the contagion for the time being and parts of Europe are trying to slowly return to normality, the U.S. is setting one negative record after the other. No other country has as many infections, and the White House itself is predicting up to 240,000 deaths by fall. A study by the Federal Reserve Bank in St. Louis estimates that 47 million Americans will have lost their jobs by June.
...
Trump Played Crisis DownThe president played down and tried to suppress the crisis for months. He couldn’t decide whether to take the virus seriously or dismiss it as a pipe dream on the part of the Democratic Party. He seemed to view it as a ploy to keep him from getting re-elected.
Again and again, Trump’s advisers have had to bring him to his senses, but even that often doesn’t work.
...
But the pandemic is also exposing weaknesses that existed before Trump’s election: a health-care system that fails the very moment when it is most needed, and a capitalist system that is unrestrained during boom times, and unimpeded when it crashes. Above all, however, it has revealed a democracy that has forgotten how to compromise.
Is the world witnessing the collapse of a superpower?...
A Shift in the Balance of Power?The airlift from Shanghai to New York is a gesture of solidarity, but also a deft PR move. The image of Beijing providing relief to the U.S. the way it would to a developing country is intended to demonstrate the shift in the global balance of power: The American patient is being cared for by the strict, but kind Chinese doctor.
...
it quickly becomes clear that what is most lacking is central coordination. According to a survey of its members by an association representing 42,000 New York nurses, around 85 percent have already come into contact with COVID patients, but almost three-quarters do not have access to sufficient protective clothing.
"We've had teams working around the clock for weeks now to source personal protective equipment, ...
The U.S. actually ought to be very well prepared for a pandemic. In 2018, almost 18 percent of the country’s gross domestic product flowed into the health sector,.... But the American health-care system is enormously expensive and highly inefficient. ...
That is now being exacerbated by political ineptitude."It’s Going to Be Just Fine”The first COVID-19 case in the U.S. was detected in Seattle on
Jan. 30 - the same day South Korea had its first case. The South Koreans built up their own testing regime at break-neck speed and were soon able to test 10,000 suspected cases a day. Trump, on the other hand, claimed on Jan. 26 at the World Economic Forum in Davos, "We have it under control, it’s going to be just fine.”
On Feb. 5, Secretary of Health and Human Services Alex Azar requested $4 billion from the White House to order supplies needed in the battle against the pandemic. But Azar didn’t get that money because Trump’s advisers still considered warnings about the virus to be exaggerated ...
"It’s Like a Miracle – It Will Disappear”It was a misunderstanding, and it was largely Trump’s fault. Within days of when the celebrating (Mardi Gras,) throngs were working their way through Bourbon Street, the president told people in Washington to think of it as being a bit like the flu. Two days later, the president uttered the ultimate expression of his negligence in handling the crisis. "It’s going to disappear. One day – it’s like a miracle – it will disappear.”
Today, Jefferson Parish County (center of Mardi Gras) has more deaths per capita than New York City. And like almost everywhere else in the U.S., it is hitting people at the bottom of the socioeconomic ladder hardest...
In the U.S., health insurance is often obtained through a person’s employer, meaning their health-care protection is directly tied to their job.
Many presidents rise to the occasion in their nation’s hour of need: John F. Kennedy led his country through the Cuban missile crisis, George W. Bush listened to the advice of experts during the financial crisis of 2008. But Trump doesn’t see the virus as way of overcoming partisan rancour. On the contrary: He appears to view the virus as some kind of personal insult.
and the article goes on, and on, and on, with direct commentary, commentary that in the USA would bring threats of death from the Trump Cult. So freedom of speech has also fallen victim during these times.
Read the full article at
www.spiegel.de/international/world/the-american-patient-how-trump-is-fueling-a-corona-disaster-a-024a5cc9-2c07-419a-a351-67837b47f6bb