Battle ground

Some jurisdictions have managed to contain the damage from the Covid-19 pandemic even as the United States leads the world in cases followed by India, Brazil and Russia.

"Taiwan has reached a record 200 days without any domestically transmitted cases of Covid-19, underlining its success in keeping the virus under control as cases rise across much of the world," reports the Guardian. Taiwan has strong ties to China and Wuhan, where the pandemic began, and yet authorities contained the spread with quarantines, masks, testing and contact tracing - and kept the numbers down. Taiwan did have experience with SARS in 2003 and continues to record new cases among arriving travelers.

If Taiwan were a US state, its population pof 24 million would rank as third largest, between Texas at 29 million and Florida at 21 million.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The inept handling of the Covid-19 pandemic at the US federal level is a concern for senior citizens, businesses, minorities, women and anyone with common sense. Failure to contain the disease's spread with simple measures - wearing masks and practicing social distancing along with testing and contact tracing - is posing lingering, dire economic consequences.  

The Trump administration has given up trying to control the spread. Mark Meadows, chief of staff, noted to a journalist: "We are not going to control the pandemic. We are going to control the fact that we get vaccines, therapeutics and other mitigation areas..." 

But that is a costly, wasteful and deadly approach. As the old saying goes, an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. 

Donald Trump mocks doctors, the media and his rival for focusing on the issue. “That's all I hear. Turn on television, ‘COVID, COVID, COVID, COVID, COVID, COVID'....By the way, on Nov. 4 you won't hear about it anymore.’’

Joe Biden continues to focus on the pandemic: "We discussed importance of wearing masks, protecting yourself, protecting your neighbor and to save around 100,000 lives in the months ahead. This is not political. It's patriotic. Wearing a mask. Wear one, period."

Battleground states have been hit hard and on Nov 3 voters will weigh in on whether Donald Trump or Joe Biden is best suited for leading the country on the Covid-19 response and other pressing matters, including climate change and widening inequality.

Source: Worldometers; checklist, Freepik.