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WITHu Stay Home, Don’t See Family, Under No Circumstances Travel: After not holding any press conferences for a long time, the Trump administration’s coronavirus task force returned with a clear call for the Day of Action of Thank you. For many Americans, the holiday next Thursday is at least as important as Christmas, but this time they should skip the holiday meal, experts say. The clear appeal is still necessary because many people continue to live in a similar way to what they lived before the pandemic. President Trump encourages them to do so.
The figures show that the US authorities are losing the fight against the virus in many places. 182,000 new cases were detected on Thursday, a new daily record. About 250,000 Americans have died so far after being infected with the coronavirus. The number is well above previous predictions: New predictions such as those from the University of Washington in Seattle assume nearly half a million deaths by spring 2021. Images from El Paso, Texas, this week showed makeshift morgues and overcrowded emergency rooms. Schools closed again in New York City. In California, the governor imposed a lengthy curfew after 10 p.m. for most administrative districts.
There are currently a particularly high number of new infections in the Midwest and Northwest. According to the CDC’s disease control agency, 30 to 40 percent of infections are still due to people with no symptoms. Most states still allow riskier activities, like dining indoors. About 11.5 million people have tested positive since the pandemic began. Around 80,000 are currently in hospital with Covid-19. In many places, hospital beds are in short supply. Reports of overcrowding and staff shortages have been reported in rural areas in particular, this is also a consequence of austerity measures and the closure of 130 hospitals in the last ten years.
The pandemic increases poverty
Meanwhile, the pandemic is causing a dramatic increase in poverty. In New York City schools, private and government organizations serve one million free meals a day, while in Massachusetts, with its nearly seven million residents, authorities estimate that one million citizens are at least temporarily hungry. . There are photographs of hundreds, even thousands, of cars lined up for hours in front of the food counter in many states. Northwestern University estimates that nearly a quarter of Americans experienced “food insecurity” during the spring and summer; the term describes hunger or living on the brink of hunger.
Before Covid-19, poverty was already the biggest social problem in the United States. The United Nations, for example, sent Special Rapporteur Philip Alston to various states in 2017, who then compared the dire situation of many people to that of the world’s poorest countries. While the stock market has recovered fairly quickly, the recovery in the job market has not been that surprising. The unemployment rate continues to hover around seven percent and unskilled workers, in particular, have a hard time finding work.
