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More infected and allegations against Trump

The number of infected people is increasing rapidly, with 64 cases confirmed in seven member states by Friday. The Trump administration is under massive pressure.

Vice President Mike Pence (right) heads the Coronavirus Task Force convened by the President.

Terry Renna / AP

The number of people infected with the corona virus has increased rapidly in the United States in recent days. After the first confirmed case in America only appeared in Northern California on Tuesday, reports of new infections are now ramping up. As of Friday evening (local time), 19 cases in 7 member states were confirmed according to the CDC (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention). So far, 459 people have been tested for the virus. There are also 44 Americans who were infected on the “Diamond Princess” cruise ship in Yokohama, Japan, and 3 citizens who were infected in the Chinese city of Wuhan. On Friday alone, two cases became known in which it is unclear how the people became infected. So far, no one has died, but the person reported on Tuesday, an elderly lady, is in critical condition, according to health officials.

The discomfort spreads like wildfire among the population: at the airports in Newark and San Francisco, a conspicuous number of passengers wore protective masks on Friday, updates to the virus dominate the television program, numerous conferences across the country were canceled, including the Facebook developer conference in May, a flagship of the social network. Several companies like Amazon have restricted business travel for their employees. Hospitals across the country are preparing for a large-scale spread of the virus.


Trump government crisis

The corona virus has also developed into a serious crisis for the government. On Monday, President Trump had tweeted that the corona virus was “completely under control in the United States. The stock markets are starting to look very good! »

Also on Tuesday, President Trump had said during his visit to India: “We have very few people who have it and they are getting better and better.”

He contradicted the assessments of health experts who had warned of the consequences of the virus, among them his own health minister Alex Azar. At a hearing at the beginning of the week at the beginning of the congress, the latter said that the virus was transmitted from person to person in other regions and that he worried what it could mean for the USA.

At the end of the week, not only the number of new infections had exploded, the financial markets also reacted with strong losses to the spreading virus. The S&P 500 index plummeted 12 percentage points within five trading days, and the Dow Jones lost the most point loss in one day in its history. Overall, it was the worst week on Wall Street since the 2008 financial crisis. In an attempt to halt this downward trend, Federal Reserve chairman Jerome Powell hinted in a brief statement on Friday that the central bank would cut interest rates if necessary protect the economy from the consequences of the corona virus. “The foundations of the American economy are still strong. Nevertheless, the corona virus poses a growing risk to the economy. » The central bank is closely monitoring developments and is ready to support the economy “in an appropriate manner”.


Health authority cuts

The Trump administration is criticized not only for downplaying the corona virus threat, but also for massively cutting back on the means to fight such diseases. Trump has not only massively cut infectious disease research funding over the past three years; in an attempt to revise his predecessor’s legacy, he had also cut epidemic agencies Obama had set up in the National Security Council and the Department of Domestic Security.

Criticism was also voiced because there had been too few test centers for the virus in the past few days. The CDC health agency has so far been the only agency to evaluate the tests at its headquarters in Atlanta, which meant that the first suspected case in Northern California could not be confirmed for days – with implications for the spread of the virus. The CDC originally developed rapid tests that should be evaluated in local laboratories, but these proved to be incorrect. Health Minister Azar now announced that several dozen other institutions can evaluate the tests; 70 manufacturers also worked on developing rapid tests that could be used at the bedside.

The whistleblower’s complaint, which became public, allegedly caused a sensation, according to which the state health experts who cared for the Americans returning from the Chinese province of Wuhan in quarantine had not adequately protected themselves. They were sent without protective clothing and training and were then allowed to move freely, which is why they could have contributed to the spread of the virus.


Allegations to the Democrats

In the meantime, Trump has given in to the public pressure and called up a task force. However, he did not delegate their chairmanship to a health expert, but vice president Mike Pence. In addition, for the second time in his three-year term, he answered journalists’ questions at the press center in the White House on Wednesday and reaffirmed how low the threat of the coronavirus is compared to the flu, which kills tens of thousands of people every year ,

The government, in turn, is now turning the tables and, in turn, accuses the media and Democrats of exaggerating the threat posed by the virus for political reasons. Mick Mulvaney, the current chief of staff at the White House, said on Friday at an event of leading conservatives that the media believed that “this will bring the president down, that’s what it’s all about”. Mulvaney emphasized that the government had already banned foreign nationals who had recently visited China at the end of January.

Trump attributed this decision to the fact that there had never been a death in the United States. “We closed the border very early,” he told journalists on Friday afternoon. He blew in the same horn as Mulvaney and accused the Democrats and the media of “doing everything to instill fear in people, and I think that is ridiculous.” On the one hand, he attributed the losses on the stock exchanges to the corona virus, on the other hand to the concerns of many investors about the democratic presidential candidates. “After we win, you will see a surge on the stock markets like you have never seen before.”


Slump on the stock exchanges

In particular, the slump in the markets should alarm Trump’s campaign team. As is well known, the President likes to brag about the strong price gains on the stock exchange since taking office. The strong financial markets, the low unemployment rate and the generally flourishing economy form the basis of his strategy for re-election. The corona virus is now shaking this line of reasoning because the global health crisis is already having a negative impact on the American economy because fewer Chinese tourists are coming to the United States and global trade is suffering. Technology companies such as Apple and Microsoft, the driving forces on the stock exchanges, have announced in the past few days that the loss of production in China will harm their sales and also endanger the supply chains, which could lead to bottlenecks in hardware products. Goldman Sachs has already revised the US GDP forecast for the first quarter down 0.8 percentage points.

Should the American population additionally get the impression that the government is not adequately fighting the virus, the Trump administration will face consequences in the upcoming presidential and congressional elections in eight months.


Expensive healthcare

The weaknesses of the American health care system also appear as if under a magnifying glass. As of 2019, 27.5 million people in the United States had no health insurance, and many policyholders have extremely high deductibles. 44 percent of Americans said in a 2018 survey that they didn’t go to the doctor when they were sick for cost reasons. The case of a man in Miami, who had himself tested on Covid-19 and then received a hospital bill for $ 3,270, is now causing a nationwide sensation. The test turned out to be negative, and two thirds of the costs will be covered by his health insurance – if he can prove that the flu found in the test does not result from a previous illness, as such would be excluded from the insurance. But the reports should deter other Americans who fear infection from being tested early – with potentially devastating consequences for the spread of the virus.

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