US re-opens even as Covid toll in three months surpasses loss during Vietnam War

Chidanand Rajghatta | TNN | Updated: Apr 29, 2020, 22:09 IST

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WASHINGTON: The United States on Wednesday passed the grim milestone of losing more people to coronavirus in three months than soldiers it lost in nearly two decades of the Vietnam War, with the death toll from the pandemic crossing 59,000 on Wednesday. Despite this, large parts of the country are re-opening for business, and those who are resisting this from fear of a resurgence of virus are under pressure from others who warn that remaining shut will decimate the economy, which shrank by 4.8 per cent in the first quarter of the year just as the pandemic was starting to take hold.
Acknowledging that the second quarter could be far worse, U.S President Donald Trump is going ahead with the risky move to allow the country to re-open for business in the face of warning from experts that a second wave of coronavirus is inevitable. Among them is the national infectious diseases pundit Dr Anthony Fauci, who has suddenly become a much-reviled figure in the Trump base that is yearning for a return to “normalcy” amid massive job losses and economic stress.
Once the lead figure in the coronavirus task force whose word was heard as gospel, Fauci has all but disappeared from the Trump White House briefings, and is now accused of funneling research money to the Wuhan virology institute from where, according to some conspiracy theorists, the coronavirus leaked. His salutary warning that a premature re-opening in U.S could result in a resurgence of the virus – borne out in countries ranging from Germany to Singapore – is being debunked or ignored by Trump acolytes who see an even greater danger in the economy tanking completely.
In fact, U.S experts are now revising upwards the possible toll from the pandemic to 74,000 by August mainly on account of premature re-opening, even as CDC data is indicating even the 59,000 fatalities so far may be understated. Some states such as New Jersey and Michigan are seeing a 100 per cent increase in deaths over the past month compared to the same period in recent years, leading to suspicion that many Covid related deaths occurring at homes are not being reported.
Meanwhile, the federal government and the states, particularly those ruled by Democrats, continue to wrangle over everything from testing capacity and responsibility to federal aid to re-opening protocols. Trump himself has now taken charge of the briefing and turned it into political theater despite last week’s debacle when he suggested introducing sunlight and disinfectants in the human body to kill the coronavirus.
The appalling idiocy of the idea was compounded this week by a cavalier appearance at the renowned Mayo Clinic by vice-president Mike Pence -- who heads the coronavirus task force – without wearing a face mask, even though every doctor and patient around him wore one. Pilloried by editorials and on social media where #MikePenceisanidiot was trending, the vice-president maintained he didn’t wear a mask because he was being tested coronavirus regularly and was negative, and he wanted to “look health care personnel in the eye and say thank you.”
The sense that the White House is not on message was underscored by different states adopting different routes and strategies to re-open for business. The Governor of California Gavin Newsom, who heads the country’s most economically powerful state, admitted he feels pressure to lift lockdown restrictions as other states race to re-open, while the Governor of New York, the third ranked state in terms of GDP (Texas is second), unveiled an elaborate 12-step plan for a phased re-opening based on a robust testing regimen, health care capacity, tracking system, and general decline in cases.
President Trump meanwhile indicated the U.S would also re-open its borders and air routes to the world, with coronavirus testing for flights coming in from international hotspots. "We're looking at doing it on the international flights coming out of areas that are heavily infected," Trump said at a White House event, identifying Brazil as one of the hotspots. India remains below the radar for now, although Trump is being excoriated in the liberal media for ignoring multiple warnings contained in his daily intelligence briefings about the coronavirus in January and February, during the tail end of which he even made a 36-hour trip to India, his last foreign sortie.