World health experts fume over Trump's handling of COVID-19 pandemic crisis

          

Global public health experts are irritated at United States President Donald Trump’s comments that he will not call for more economic shutdowns even as COVID-19 case numbers keep to increasing due to a reopening of the economy.

Ten states in the U.S. have recorded this week their highest seven-day average since the pandemic began.

Yet, Trump and other leaders are pushing citizens to go back to work and resume their normal routines. 

"We won't be closing the country again. We won't have to do that,” Trump stated Wednesday

Newspapers across Europe have recently published articles and editorials lamenting over the Trump administration's approach to the pandemic, The Washington Post disclosed Friday. 

Infectious disease specialists around the world are struggling to understand the logic of reopening the country when the number of new cases keeps growing, the Post reported

                   

      

" It really does feel like the U.S. has given up," specialist at the University of Auckland in New Zealand, Siouxsie Wiles, said.

After spending four percent of its GDP on corona virus relief, New Zealand announced in late April that it had stopped the spread of corona virus in the country. As of Sunday, the country has had recorded only three confirmed cases of COVID-19 in the past three weeks.  

Other countries where  number of cases have dropped significantly in recent weeks, such as Canada, Denmark, and Germany, also introduced far-reaching economic relief packages early on in the crisis to have people to stay at home and avoid overwhelming healthcare structures.

Those spending plans contrast sharply with relief measures in the U.S.,including a one-time direct payment of US$1,200 to some citizens and US$600 per week in addition  to regular unemployment benefits.  

Unemployment benefits will further end in the coming days in several states for workers who didn't return to their jobs after their industries began reopening. Ohio's government asked companies to report employees who failed to return.

Wiles expressed horror at the pressure under which many U.S. citizens are living for weeks to keep reporting to work.

"I can't imagine what it must be like having to go to work knowing it"s unsafe," Wiles stated. "It's hard to see how this ends. There are just going to be more and more people infected, and more and more deaths. It's heartbreaking", he lamented.