Essay on COVID-19: Dysfunction and Denial - US on Course to See More Deaths

Coronavirus has impacted economies of different countries negatively since nations cannot conduct trade as there are restrictions in the borders. The government is slow in responding to the disease, and in the coming weeks, the number of deaths might rise. It is dysfunction and denial that beset the United States when Coronavirus raged. When the President claimed to be a wartime president while Coronavirus was an enemy, the nation was on the course of seeing more individuals die as compared to Iraq, Afghanistan, Vietnam, and Korea wars (Abutaleb, Dawsey, Nakashima, & Miller, 2020). Although different wartime measures have been taken by the government, including banning incoming travelers, the government is still slow on responding to the disease as most Americans are working towards surviving the pandemic.

Is your time best spent reading someone else’s essay? Get a 100% original essay FROM A CERTIFIED WRITER!

Save 25%

Despite the extreme steps taken by the American government, United States will go down likely as it did not have enough preparations for fighting the pandemic (Abutaleb, Dawsey, Nakashima, & Miller, 2020). The pandemic has made the country to sustain more causalities as compared to other nations globally. Even though the nation was not well prepared, it has more plans, resources, epidemiological experience, and expertise as compared to other nations that are better fending the disease (Abutaleb, Dawsey, Nakashima, & Miller, 2020). Warnings were given, but the President was so deaf on them as it received formal notification regarding the practice on January 3rd, 2020.

Coronavirus outbreak is linked to social and health consequences that are considered significant social events in the 21st Century human life. The thing that made the outbreak different is human biological life fragility and sterile society demand that is safe from any kind of hazard.

The United States is leading in the cases of Coronavirus, but not responding to the pandemic (Cornwall, Kaiser, Kupferschmidt, Malakoff, & Servick, 2020). Currently, the number of people infected by the virus has surpassed all other nations. A month ago, President Donald Trump said that the virus was under control. However, he currently warns that the virus might get worse in the coming days. Most of the officials across the country scramble to get enough protective gear, hospital supplies, and ventilators for the hospitals which are overwhelmed by Coronavirus patients (Cornwall, Kaiser, Kupferschmidt, Malakoff, & Servick, 2020). Some of the state governors have even put restrictions on slowing the pandemic. Despite these actions, the response of the pandemic in the U.S.A is still a work in progress that has conflicting messages from the political leaders.

The failure of President Donald Trump in responding to the pandemic did not commence with its inability to sending millions of protective gears and test kits needed in tacking the crisis (Lopez, 2020). Instead, it commenced with the President's bungled message that downplayed the crisis as it got worse. The way COVID-19 sickened individuals in China confirmed its severity. The way the nation responded to SARS-CoV-2 is a show of the way the country was not ready to respond to any pandemic (Lopez, 2020) quickly. Even the Centers for Disease Control and Pandemic plus other public agencies showed that the administration of Trump does not prioritize the nation's capacity in responding to any disease outbreaks as it wanted to cut its budget. Another thing that shows U.S.A was slow in responding is the number of people it tested in a week. For instance, South Korea tested about 66,000 people in community transmission first week across the borders, and it took the United States about three weeks to complete several tests (Lopez, 2020).

Apart from the government, American citizens were slow to respond to the pandemic. It is funny that they believed in the rumors and even went ahead to hoard toilet papers making people wonder the way toilet papers were related to the pandemic (Milligan, 2020). The reactions of the citizens came from fear and people's brain chemistry when there is a new danger. In such cases, people find it difficult to understand issues, and they keep on worrying. Risk perception psychology is not concerning the actual but mainly the way people feel regarding the risk (Milligan, 2020). Several factors heighten the fear of humans due to massive uncertainty. Even though the pandemic is risky, the fears of humans do not usually match facts as it overwhelms their ability to be reasonable regarding the statistics. Apart from fighting the virus, people are also fighting fear, which seems to be more dangerous as compared to the virus. It is this fear that made people clean grocery shelves and even hoarding toilet papers.

Another worrying thing is that as the pandemic grows, the American citizens are stocking up guns. The reason is that the disease causes unraveling social order concerns that result in ammo and firearms to lead in surge sales (Tribune News Service, 2020). Among the buyers, there are Asian Americans, and it is due to fear of the outbreak of racist backlash. Booming sales is an understatement for the sellers as people are really buying the guns, especially the areas which are highly hit by the Coronavirus (Tribune News Service, 2020).

Conclusion

In conclusion, although different wartime measures have been taken by the government, including banning incoming travelers, the government is still slow on responding to the disease as most Americans are working towards surviving the pandemic. Also, both the government and the citizens were not prepared for the pandemic. For instance, the government did not put enough test kits and protective gear in controlling the pandemic. For the citizens, Coronavirus has caused fear, making them hoard toilet papers and buy guns.

References

Abutaleb, Y., Dawsey, J., Nakashima, E., & Miller, G. (2020, April 04th). The U.S. was beset by denial and dysfunction as the Coronavirus raged. Washington Post. https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2020/04/04/coronavirus-government-dysfunction/?arc404=true

Cornwall, W., Kaiser, J., Kupferschmidt, K., Malakoff, D., & Servick, K. (2020, April 01st). The United States leads in coronavirus cases, but not pandemic response. Sciencemag.org. https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2020/04/united-states-leads-coronavirus-cases-not-pandemic-response

Lopez, G. (2020, April 01st). The Trump administration's botched coronavirus response, explained. Vox. https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2020/3/14/21177509/coronavirus-trump-covid-19-pandemic-response

Milligan, S. (2020, March 19th). Americans Panic and Play During the Coronavirus Pandemic. U.S News. https://www.usnews.com/news/national-news/articles/2020-03-19/americans-panic-and-play-during-the-coronavirus-pandemic

Tribune News Service. (2020, March 18th). As coronavirus panic grows, Americans stock up - on guns. South China Morning Post. https://www.scmp.com/news/world/united-states-canada/article/3075655/coronavirus-panic-grows-americans-stock-guns