US Sunbelt mayors push back against Trump's virus optimism
Category: Health, Science & Technology
Via: buzz-of-the-orient • 4 years ago • 2 commentsBy: AFP - No Author Indicated
It's too late. America now has to weather the PERFECT storm, not just a storm.
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
US Sunbelt mayors push back against Trump's virus optimism
US Sunbelt mayors warned Sunday that their cities are at risk of being overwhelmed by a surge of coronavirus cases as they pushed back against US President Donald Trump's attempt to minimize the gravity of the spreading virus.
© SAUL LOEB US President Donald Trump is seen in this file photo from June 23, 2020 speaking to a large group of students in Phoenix, Arizona; as usual, he did not wear a mask
COVID-19 has been raging for weeks across southern and western states. Florida has registered 10,000 new cases on some days. Arizona has seen record hospitalizations. And intensive care units in Houston, Texas are operating near maximum capacity.
© Go Nakamura The COVID-19 pandemic has left many intensive-care units, like this one shown during a patient transfer in a Houston, Texas hospital, operating at or near capacity
With President Trump continuing to play down the disease -- eschewing a mask, continuing to address large gatherings, saying a vaccine is only months away and asserting that "99 percent" of cases are not serious -- the exasperation of local officials has begun to boil over, with some floating the idea of new stay-at-home orders.
© Robyn Beck People wearing face masks wait in line to shop at an Ikea store in Carson, California on July 4, 2020
"Mixed messages" from US leaders have been a problem, Mayor Kate Gallego of Phoenix, Arizona told ABC's "This Week."
- Crowds and free Champagne -
"President Trump was in my community, chose not to wear a mask, and he's having large events while I'm trying to push people" to stay home and avoid crowds, said Gallego, who is a Democrat.
Once Arizona began reopening its economy, she said, "We had crowded nightclubs handing out free Champagne, no masks."
Insufficient testing capacity has left some people -- including some feeling symptoms -- waiting up to eight hours in their cars to be tested, Gallego said.
Yet when she asked the Federal Emergency Management Agency for testing help, "We were told they're moving away from that -- which feels like they're declaring victory while we're in crisis mode."
The state has now passed the 1,800-death mark -- more than six times the toll in all of South Korea.
- Caution on vaccine -
An administration official, Dr. Stephen Hahn, who heads the Food and Drug Administration, carefully avoided criticizing the president when asked about Trump's recent optimistic assertions.
© Mark Felix Healthcare workers transfer a COVID-19 patient at United Memorial Medical Center in Houston, Texas on July 2, 2020; some hospital intensive-care units there are on the verge of being overwhelmed by the pandemic.
Regarding the president's prediction that a vaccine would be available "long before the end of the year," Hahn said, "I can't predict when a vaccine will be available."
As to Trump's assertion that 99 percent of COVID-19 cases are "totally harmless," Hahn told ABC that "any case, any death is tragic."
Steve Adler, the Democratic mayor of Austin, Texas, later said that such cautious language made him "angry."
"It is dangerous not to be sending a clear message to Americans," he told CNN. "We're on a trajectory right now we could be inundating our intensive care units here within the next week to 10 days."
In Texas, Governor Greg Abbott had prohibited restrictions -- such as mask-wearing requirements -- sought by some local governments. But with the virus dramatically surging, the Republican governor on Thursday reversed himself, ordering mask-wearing in most counties.
"What we're seeing," Judge Lina Hidalgo, the county executive for the area including Houston, told ABC, "is that wishful thinking is neither good economic policy nor good public health policy.
"What we need right now is to do what works, a stay-at-home order," said Hidalgo, who is a Democrat.
- Exceeding surge capacities -
She said hospitals in Houston and other Texas cities are "crossing their surge capacities."
The hardest-hit Sunbelt states were among the first to reopen their economies -- strongly encouraged to do so by Trump.
Some mayors resisted the reopening.
"The city of Miami was the last city in the entire state of Florida to open," Mayor Francis Suarez, a Republican, told ABC.
"I was criticized for waiting so long. When we reopened, people started socializing like the virus didn't exist."
Tom Bossert, former homeland security advisor to Trump, warned that matters could get worse.
"There's a solid reason to believe there are 500,000 people in Florida right now, today, infectious," he said.
"Masks alone won't cut it."
Yet, the lure of beach time proved too much to resist for some Americans on this July 4 holiday weekend.
In New York, 37-year-old Mark Ruiz brought his wife and two children to the Coney Island beach, where few masks were in view. He said he was "definitely worried" about the virus, but he had a mask and was social distancing.
"We can't be in a bubble all summer," he said.
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IMO he should be tarred and feathered and run out of the White House on a rail.
In Florida the last two days we've had over 11,000 and yesterday over 10,000 new cases.