United States President Donald Trump was convinced that the coronavirus was just common flu. On March 4, he told the television host Sean Hannity that the coronavirus was not even as lethal as the flu, which could kill between 27,000 and 77,000 people a year. A week later, Dr Anthony Fauci of the National Institutes of Health told the U.S. Congress that “the mortality of COVID-19 is multiple times what the seasonal flu is”. The death rate for the flu is 0.1 per cent, while the World Health Organisation (WHO) says that the estimated death rate for coronavirus is at 3.4 per cent. This small incident reveals how callous Trump was from the very first about the coronavirus and the threat it posed to the people of the world, and to the people of the U.S.
Not only was Trump publicly callous about the threat from this coronavirus, but his administration had cut funding for the Infectious Diseases Rapid Response Reserve Fund and for the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). The CDC lost 15 per cent of its budget, which amounts to $1.2 billion, while the Reserve Fund lost $35 million. The federal Public Health Emergency Preparedness programme lost a third of its budget between 2002 and 2019, now down to $617 million; this has meant a loss of trained workers who can manage a pandemic at the community level. These cuts come after a decade of austerity for public health services in the U.S. and the haemorrhaging of workers in the social services and public health sectors. The infrastructure that would deal with a pandemic had been sliced down to the bone, or indeed, even into the bone.
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Bu hikaye FRONTLINE dergisinin April 10, 2020 sayısından alınmıştır.
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Sarpanchs as game changers
Odisha manages to keep COVID-19 well under control because of the strong participation of panchayati raj institutions and the community at the grass-roots level under the leadership of Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik.
New worries
Kerala’s measured approach to the pandemic and lockdown has yielded results. But it still has to grapple with their huge economic impact on its economy, which it feels the Centre’s special financial relief package does little to alleviate.
Capital's Malthusian moment
In a world that needs substantial reorienting of production and distribution, Indian capital is resorting to a militant form of moribund neoliberalism to overcome its current crisis. In this pursuit of profit, it is ready and willing to throw into mortal peril millions whom it adjudicates as not worth their means—an admixture of social Darwinism born of capital’s avarice and brutalism spawned by Hindutva. .
Waiting for Jabalpur moment
The Supreme Court’s role in ensuring executive accountability during the ongoing lockdown leaves much to be desired. Standing in shining contrast is the record of some High Courts.
An empty package
The Modi regime, which has been unable to control the COVID-19 infection, restore economic activity and provide relief to millions exposed to starvation, trains its sights on Indian democracy, making use of the panic generated by fear and a lockdown that forecloses paths of resistance.
Job Offers Withdrawn, Internships Now Unpaid
Engineering and business school graduates stare at a bleak future as job offers are withdrawn or revised, while delays in joining dates add to the climate of uncertainty.
In search of a road map
It is now increasingly clear that the government did not think through and provide for the consequences of the lockdown.
Clueless captain
As the nation longs for relief from the pandemic and the economic misery caused by an ill-planned lockdown, the government prefers symbolism over substance, exposing its lack of meaningful leadership.
RISING TREND
There are no signs of any let-up in the COVID case numbers well into the third phase of the lockdown even as issues of violation of physical distancing norms, mistreatment of front-line health workers, inadequate public health infrastructure and increasing distress among the poor come to the fore in most States, besides of course the low testing numbers and haphazard screening and isolation of suspect cases.
Dystopian pipe dream
The reluctance of the Narendra Modi regime to extend fiscal support to those in real need of help during a prolonged lockdown suggests that it is promoting further concentration of capital. Dire consequences await the economy and the polity.
