The “Trump effect” on the coronavirus emergency

The Trump effect on coronavirus: “A very dark winter is looming due to the coronavirus, and many people will die if Donald Trump refuses to cooperate,” the US President-elect Joe Biden said. Biden called for the transition phase to start in his Wilmington, Delaware address after a virtual summit with industry leaders and union representatives. The outgoing president continues to refuse to admit the electoral defeat in the November 3 vote. Coronavirus deaths in the United States are over 247,000, according to Johns Hopkins University tally. Since the start of the pandemic, 247,101 people have died in the country. The infections, in total, are 11,188,766. So far, 4,185,549 people healed. The daily rate of new cases far exceeds 100,000.

“We all agreed that we need to get the economy up and running. We need to get our workers back on track, and that means putting the virus under control,” Biden stressed, warning that the situation “is bound to get worse before it gets better.” On Sunday, according to the Covid Tracking Project, 69,864 people have been admitted to American hospitals, a level much higher than the previous peak of April 15 at 59,940.  In the past week, according to data from Johns Hopkins, an average of 148,725 new coronavirus cases were recorded per day, 31% more than the previous week’s daily average. In the United States, an average of 1,000 people dies from the virus every day, immunologist Anthony Fauci said yesterday.

Many believe that these numbers are the result of Donald Trump’s words. The Italian editorial “L’Espresso” published an in-depth analysis precisely on the disastrous effect of the tycoon words on the COVID 19 emergency. Trump not only publicly underestimated the risks of the virus. But the continuous attacks on China and the criticism of the measures proposed by the World Health Organization (WHO) have fueled conspiracy theories, leading millions of Americans to disregard restrictive measures, or more simply, to ignore protective measures such as facial masks, or social distancing. All of this allowed the virus to spread much faster than in other countries, and the tracing, essential to counter the pandemic, became impossible.

Not happy, Trump could now worsen the scenario by refusing an orderly handover with Biden. However, Americans remain optimistic and hope that the vaccine will soon be available to all, as the current tenant of the White House promised. “The vaccine is important, but it is of little use until you are vaccinated. How can we vaccinate over 300 million Americans? What is the competition plan? It is a huge undertaking to do so. If we wait until January 20 for planning, we stay back over a month while it’s fundamental to plan now, and that there is cooperation,” Biden said.

Pfizer, the pharmaceutical company that announced on November 5 that it had developed a 90 percent effective coronavirus vaccine, has meanwhile announced that it will launch a pilot program of immunization from Covid-19 in the U.S. to help define a national drug distribution and administration plan. The pharmaceutical company selected the states of Rhode Island, Texas, New Mexico, and Tennessee for the pilot program. Due to their marked differences in land area, population, housing density, and immunization infrastructure.