Two-third Americans say Trump’s COVID-19 response too slow

 

 

Live Desk: Nearly two-third of Americans say that president Donald Trump was too slow in taking major steps to address the threat to the United States from the new coronavirus, a poll published on Thursday said.

According to the Pew Research Centre, 65 per cent said that Trump was tardy in responding when cases of the COVID-19 illness were first reported in other countries.

He initially downplayed the virus and had been keen to end the resulting lockdowns which had crippled the world’s largest economy.The Pew survey was conducted April 7-12 among a sample 4,917 American adults.

It found that 52 per cent said that Trump’s public comments on the coronavirus outbreak were making the situation seem better than it really was.

Thirty-nine per cent said that he was presenting the situation about as it really was, while 8 per cent said that he was making the situation seem worse than in reality.

Trump had been speaking at length during daily press conferences alongside medical experts.On Thursday, he recommended a gradual reopening of the economy, a day after saying ‘the data suggests that nationwide we have passed the peak on new cases.’

That declaration came on the same day tracking by Johns Hopkins University showed 2,569 US deaths over a previous 24-hour period, the heaviest daily toll of any country.

The Pew survey found that 73 per cent of the US adults said that the worst was still to come in terms of problems the US was facing from the outbreak. With state governors also working on plans to ease up on economic restrictions, 66 per cent said their greater concern was that states would lift restrictions on public activity too quickly.

About half that number, 32 per cent, said that a reopening would not happen quickly enough.The novel coronavirus emerged in China in late December. On January 21 US officials announced the country’s first case, and other cases began emerging outside China leading the World Health Organisation on January 30 to declare a ‘public health emergency of international concern.’

Trump, who boasted in January that we have it totally under control did not declare a government initiative to slow the spread until March 16.

The United States has more coronavirus deaths in excess of 30,000 on Thursday — than any other country, according to Johns Hopkins.

Dhaka, April 17 (campuslive24.com)//Ait

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