Jubilee Post News & Views
Special Desk
Its mask, COVID-19 and president Donal Trump, again making news in America. This time as US President Donald Trump has vowed not to order Americans to wear masks — to contain the infection spread.
His comments came after the country’s top infectious disease expert, Dr Anthony Fauci, urged state and local leaders to be as forceful as possible in getting people to wear masks. Wearing face coverings, Dr Fauci added, is “really important” and “we should be using them, everyone”.
The wearing of face coverings has become highly politicised in the US. The US president was criticised for not wearing mask in public and then his first public appearance in mask too was a news.
The majority of state governors have now ordered that the wearing of masks outdoors be mandatory, rather than a personal choice. Among them are Republican governors, including Kay Ivey of Alabama, who have reversed their initial opposition to the mandates.
President Trump, who had previously resisted wearing a face covering himself, wore a mask in public for the first time a week ago. But speaking to a news channel Trump said he didn’t agree with a national mask mandate, saying people should enjoy a certain level of freedom.
Earlier this week, US public health body the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) released a statement urging everyone to wear masks.
“We are not defenceless against COVID-19,” CDC Director Dr Robert R Redfield said. “Cloth face coverings are one of the most powerful weapons we have to slow and stop the spread of the virus – particularly when used universally within a community setting.”
In the southern state of Georgia, Republican governor Brian Kemp has urged residents to wear masks for the next month. Kemp made the appeal to the state’s residents despite taking legal action a day earlier against the mayor of Atlanta, Keisha Lance Bottoms, for making face coverings mandatory in the city.
A number of US states, primarily southern states, are experiencing a surge in confirmed cases of coronavirus. Hundreds of military medical staff have been deployed in Texas and California to help officials cope with new Covid-19 cases, and in Texas and Arizona, cooler trucks have been sent in to help store dead bodies.
The US continues to remain at the epicentre of the global pandemic. There are now more than 3.6 million confirmed cases of coronavirus in the US, and there have been more than 139,000 deaths – the highest death toll in the world.
