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Dr. Robert Redfield, the head of the Center for Disease Control, has issued a dire warning to the US over the impending fall season. As the virus continues to rampage through the US, over 5 million people have fallen ill and over 160,000 people have died from the disease. “For your country right now and for the war that we’re in against Covid, I’m asking you to do four simple things: wear a mask, social distance, wash your hands and be smart about crowds,” Redfield stated in an interview with WebMD.
“I’m not asking some of America to do it,” the doctor continued. “We all gotta do it.”
While the virus continues to spread despite patchwork efforts to contain it, the US has entered a bizarre period. The pandemic has triggered an economic recession. People have been forced to stay home for months to avoid crowds. Older Americans have spent so much time online searching terms about the virus that they’re now also searching for “arthritis finger pain treatment”. And still, the pandemic rages on.
You’d be forgiven at the beginning of the pandemic for thinking that things would get back to normal quickly. After all, this is an unprecedented health crisis. Now, five months into the pandemic with no signs of it slowing or stopping in the US, frustrations are running high. Some countries, like New Zealand and South Korea, have effectively eliminated the virus within their borders. The US has completely failed to do the same. Why is that?
A combination of factors have made this difficult for the US. Firstly, there was no concerted national effort to test for and trace the disease like in some other countries. Likewise, lockdowns were not implemented at a national level; instead, individual states and cities were left to make their own decisions regarding their response to the virus.
However, this has left Americans in a tough spot. Now, the virus has spread to the point where it may become endemic to the US. In short, that would mean that coronavirus is just another bleak aspect of life to worry about when out in the world. The infection rate has become so high that it seems unlikely that just a vaccine could curb the spread of the virus now.
Another lengthy lockdown like the one that opened this pandemic seems unlikely to occur. People resent being told to simply stay home. However, the alternative is allowing this pandemic to essentially become entrenched in the US. This could just be life for us now.
