Overseas online review: anti epidemic failure, white flags filled the national square of the United

Original title: Overseas online review: anti epidemic failure, white flags filled the national square of the United States

In September 15th, Washington National Plaza was filled with white flag, mourning the death of Americans who died in COVID-19. (photo source: Associated Press)
The national square in Washington is covered with white flags again.
More than 660 thousand white flags have been plugged into the National Mall to mourn the Americans who died in COVID-19, according to 16 reports today. This is an exhibition called "in the United States: remember", which will be open to the public from September 17 to October 3. It is reported that on the opening day of the exhibition, about 66 will be inserted in the national square5000 white flags, and the staff will increase the number of white flags every day according to the latest statistics.
Since the outbreak, Washington's national square has been filled with flags to mourn the dead for many times, and it has been difficult to effectively control the epidemic in the United States for more than a year. As of September 14th, novel coronavirus pneumonia was the 663913 death in the United States, which is equivalent to 1 deaths per 500 Americans. COVID-19 has been diagnosed with pneumonia. US media said that the United States had encountered another severe "milepost" in the struggle against the devastating COVID-19. As the country with the highest medical level and ability in the world, the United States has always struggled and sunk in the mire of the epidemic, and finally collapsed.
The "bulk" decentralization system makes the U.S. anti epidemic work separate and mutual constraints, making it difficult to quickly integrate resources and coordinate response. The United States carries out federal, state and local three levels of government governance. COVID-19 and other public health affairs belong to state affairs. State governments and local governments are the main management providers. The anti epidemic measures of the federal government are not mandatory. Take the "mask injunction", which has been the focus recently, as an example. Although the Centers for Disease Control and prevention has stated in the latest version of the epidemic prevention guidelines that even people who have completed two doses of vaccination should wear masks in an indoor closed environment, this statement is not mandatory, including Florida, Texas, Mississippi The governors of many states, including Tennessee, not only refused to promote the "mask injunction", but even signed an executive order to prohibit the implementation of the "mask injunction" in schools and other institutions. This lack of coordination in the epidemic situation has become the soft spot for the United States to deal with COVID-19 since the outbreak. At the peak of the epidemic spread last year, there was even a farce of the federal and state, state and state competing for epidemic prevention materials and driving up prices. It is also this way of fighting the epidemic without a unified strategy that paves the way for the collapse of the United States.
COVID-19 turned into a "weapon" of the party struggle, which made the us miss the critical time point for the epidemic. As early as the beginning of January 2020, the US National Security Council had received an alert, predicting that COVID-19 would take place in the United States and possibly develop into a "global pandemic". However, in order to maintain the "good-looking" economic and employment figures and win support, the then republican government deliberately played down the epidemic warning, restricted medical experts from publishing information to the public, and even published false information to mislead the people, saying that the new crown was "influenza major", and the risk of infection and mortality were "very low", resulting in the "Golden Window" of epidemic prevention and control being wasted. Over the past year, local governments, state governments and federal governments have frequently taken some epidemic prevention policies to court, wasting the time applied to deal with the epidemic in lengthy and cumbersome judicial procedures, contributing to the spread of the epidemic. The website of time magazine reported last May that the delay in social isolation measures in the United States has led to 90% of new deaths.
At the same time, the anti epidemic policy has also become a "chip" for the party. Politicians from both parties frequently waged tug of war around nucleic acid testing standards, whether they should wear masks, whether they should return to work, the distribution of medical materials and the provisions of the rescue bill, which delayed the implementation of anti epidemic measures. In the outbreak of the epidemic in July, in 11 Southern States, including Florida, Texas, Tennessee and Louisiana, which were ruled by the Republican Party, politicians put ideological issues such as "freedom" and "personal choice" above science and fried the anti epidemic policy as a "constitutional issue" in order to cater to voters, which eventually made these states the epicenter and hardest hit area of the epidemic. It is some politicians who manipulate the epidemic for personal and party political interests, politicize the fight against the epidemic, and finally make the people's right to life and health fall victim to the "power game".
Chronic diseases such as social polarization and racial problems have poisoned the environment of anti epidemic in American society. On the one hand, the polarization of American society and the intensification of Party strife are both external and internal. The reason why some American politicians ignore science and common sense is also related to some groups in the United States who unilaterally emphasize individual freedom and turn the implementation of epidemic prevention measures into a dispute over values. For example, since the beginning of the school season in July this year, despite the surge in the number of confirmed cases of children in the United States, many states are still trapped in the debate over whether children should be forced to wear masks at school. Some activists who oppose the mask injunction even impact the relevant meetings of school districts and schools and interfere with the policy-making process. The New York Times also lamented, "all these arguments are said to be in the interests of children, even if children are used as chess pieces."
On the other hand, the chronic disease of racial inequality in the United States has always failed to reach the whole people. Taking race as an example, racial inequality in the United States has undoubtedly been exposed in this epidemic. According to the data of the Centers for Disease Control and prevention in June this year, the risk of Latinos infected with the new crown is twice that of whites, and the risk of dying from the new crown is twice that of whites0.3 times; Native Americans and African Americans also have a higher risk of infection and death than whites. Adams, former director of the U.S. Public Health Bureau, said that the death rate of African Americans is much higher than the overall death rate. It is not for physiological or genetic reasons, but because social factors make African Americans more vulnerable to infection. It is precisely because the increasingly polarized and antagonistic social emotions are intertwined with Party and political interests, and chronic diseases such as racial inequality and the widening gap between the rich and the poor continue to attack, which makes it difficult for the United States to form a "joint force" to jointly deal with the epidemic, and the epidemic has always been in a vicious circle.
With the surge of the epidemic in August, Americans who cheered the arrival of the "summer of hope" in July had to usher in autumn in a haze. If the United States still does not learn a lesson, the dazzling scene of hundreds of thousands of white flags flying in the wind will not be the end of the epidemic in the United States.
[original title] overseas online review: anti epidemic failure, white flags filled the national square of the United States
Source: overseas network
Editor Jia Yuqin
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