Two months into fight against most severe pandemic in age of globalisation, neither health nor economic war has been won
People wait on a long line to receive a food bank donation at the Barclays Center on May 15 2020 in the Brooklyn borough in New York City. Picture: AFP/GETTY IMAGES/STEPHANIE KEITH
For every community in which caseloads are declining, other hotspots arise and fester; for states such as Wisconsin where bars are open and crowded, there are others such as Maryland that remain under strict limits. Faced with two distinct paths — a cavalier acceptance of the mass deaths that would be needed for “herd immunity” or the truly strict lockdown needed to extinguish the virus — “we are not on either route”, Harvard University economist James Stock, among the first to model the health and economic trade-offs the country faces, said last week.“I am really concerned we are just going to hang out.
The lockdowns and money have had an impact on the disease’s spread, as the postponement of sporting events and other mass gatherings, and restaurant and store closings curbed the spread of a virus that some early estimates forecast killing as many as 2-million Americans.After federal government missteps and delays, testing has ramped up to 1.5-million to 2-million tests a day, still less than half what health experts say the country needs.
Fighting the spread of the virus came with a huge economic hit as stores closed, transportation networks scaled back, and tens of millions of people lost jobs or revenue at their businesses.
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