Americans are protesting the pandemic

Canada is flattening the coronavirus curve.

With so many parameters, restrictions and lay offs, public health experts say that a graph of positive tests shows that the sacrifice is working. But as for Canada’s closest neighbour, on March 25th it was predicted that the U.S. might end up with the worst COVID-19 outbreak in the industrialized world.

As it was explained in The Atlantic, the testing fiasco was the original push toward America’s pandemic failure. If the country could have accurately tracked the spread of the virus; hospitals could have executed their pandemic plans, allocated treatment rooms, ordering extra supplies, tagging in personnel, or assigning specific facilities to deal with COVID-19 cases. But none of that happened.

Instead, a health-care system that was already challenged by a severe flu season and consistently runs close to full capacity, was suddenly faced with a virus that had been left to spread, untracked, through communities around the country.

The same hospitals became overwhelmed. Basic protective equipment began to run out with promise that more items would run out inevitably, and some more important than others.

America’s health-care system is set to operate on the assumption that unaffected states can help affected states in an emergency. But that ethic works only for localized disasters such as hurricanes or wildfires, not for a pandemic that is now in all 50 states. On top of it, cooperation has given way to competition; some worried hospitals have bought out large quantities of supplies, in the same way that many panicked consumers bought out toilet paper.

Still, in the past week, protesters around the U.S. waved signs that have been branded “dumb” and “ignorant” as they rallied behind wanting the states to reopen immediately, even though the coronavirus is continuing to claim lives at an alarming rate.

Hundreds gathered outside Colorado’s state capitol in Denver on Sunday demanding an end to the shutdown. They joined demonstrators in other states, including Arizona and Washington, demanding governors lift lockdowns and open nonessential businesses that have been shuttered to slow the spread of the virus.

Thousands defied a ban on gatherings of 50 people or more to protest Washington Governor Jay Inslee’s stay-at-home order at the state capitol in Olympia.

A number of people carried signs that suggested they would prefer to become ill with COVID-19, the disease caused by the novel coronavirus, than have limits on their freedom. “Freedom over illusion of safety” and “Freedom is essential,” were written upon signs that protesters of Olympia brandished.

Many protesters also defied social distancing guidelines and indicated their support for President Donald Trump, who appeared to endorse demonstrations against lockdown measures by saying some governors had gone “too far” with pandemic parameters during his media briefing on Sunday.

Rallies calling for restrictions to be eased also broke out in numerous other states, including Wisconsin, Michigan, Ohio, Minnesota, Kentucky and Tennessee last week.

It is as redundant as protesters wearing face masks amid signs that read “the lockdown is killing us not Covid-19” and a sign that read “I want a haircut.”

Meanwhile Nancy Pelosi and Donald Trump reignited their long-running feud Sunday morning after the House Speaker said the president is embracing anti-lockdown protests to “distract from his failures.”

The protesting itself is without agreement, labelled as a public health danger. All in all, crossing the border seems to be out of the question for the foreseeable future.

Related Posts