Riots, the collapse of medicine and "bags of corpses": the situation with coronavirus in the United States on April 20

Quarantine protest rallies continue in US April 20 / Collage: FBA Economics Today

Quarantine unrest continues in several states at once, and the American health care system is predicted to crash: the situation with COVID-19 in the US on April 20.

U.S. riots

Residents of several US states, including Washington, Michigan, Utah and Kentucky, staged protests against quarantine measures in connection with the coronavirus. Thousands of people gather in the capitals of the subjects. Americans are unhappy with the restrictions imposed in the country because of the epidemic. They require local and federal authorities to loosen quarantine in order to return to work, without which people lose income and rapidly become poorer.

According to The Washington Post, an ultra-right ideology group led by a certain Ben Dorr organized protests. Prior to this, his organization actively advocated freedom of carrying weapons. At the same time, the social networks that became the main channel for organizing the rallies refused to block the pages of Dorr and his group, and in Michigan the organizer was a member of the election headquarters of Donald Trump (by the way, who called the protesters "very responsible").

"Sacks of corpses" for Trump

Along with rallies of coronavirus skeptics, the Americans held a protest rally, considering the measures taken in the country against the epidemic to be insufficient. In San Francisco, a group of activists brought improvised "bags of corpses" to the government building, on which were written fake death certificates signed by Trump. Another group of activists brought “bodies” to one of the president’s hotels in New York.

Protesters criticized Washington for its "catastrophic" approach to combating COVID-19 and suggested that the US authorities in the first phase of the pandemic hid the real danger of a new disease. It is because of this, according to activists, that the United States is the world leader in the number of cases (more than 764.7 thousand people as of April 20) and deaths (almost 41 thousand people) from coronavirus.

Americans actively protest against harsh measures of the authorities - and for their great rigidity / Collage: FBA "Economics Today"

Americans actively protest against harsh measures of the authorities - and for their great rigidity / Collage: FBA "Economics Today"

US predicted the collapse of the health system

US authorities catastrophically underestimate the risks of coronavirus spreading through young children, analysts at the Women's Institute for Independent Social Research (WIISE) said. According to the center’s experts, children are potentially one of the main sources of COVID-19 spreading to vulnerable groups, but Washington is not doing anything to detect the coronavirus.

If the situation continues to develop in its current form, every two hundred American child will be a carrier and distributor of coronavirus, which will lead to the collapse of the entire health care system of the United States, analysts warn. To avoid this, WIISE advises working on the identification of COVID-19 in children, as well as raising awareness among American families about the risks involved.

Coronavirus and US policy

Various political forces in the United States are trying to use the coronavirus for their own purposes. But while right-wing forces traditionally loyal to the Republicans are behind the quarantine protests, Democrats tend to hysteria around COVID-19 to hit Trump before the election.

According to Alexander Schneider, a professor from Boston, the American Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) ordered people with an unconfirmed infection and an unrelated cause of death to be considered dead from coronavirus. According to Schneider, the situation may be influenced by the political position of the leaders of the CDC and other relevant institutions who want to set up Trump voters who suffer from quarantine measures against the president.

The states are also politicizing the situation with coronavirus at the international level, which is manifested in anti-Chinese rhetoric and attempts to influence international organizations (WHO). Syrian President Bashar al-Assad called the epidemic "the area of ​​political investment" of the United States, pointing to the preservation by the Americans of sanctions in difficult conditions for the whole world.

Author: Grigory Egorov