The US: The Pandemic and Its Squabbles

Add to the serious damages that the coronavirus has inflicted on the United States, one more: friction between important leaders. That according to a report in El Diario NY Friday.

The story pits New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo against President Donald Trump. The source of the friction? Cuomo’s purchase of the first of numerous personal protection items for doctors and nurses. “The cruelest irony” is that the United States has found itself obliged to look for coronavirus supplies in China, where the sickness began at the end of 2019, Cuomo said. “I don’t have a New York Defense Production Act,” Cuomo added during a press conference in Albany.

The governor was referring to a law that Trump could invoke to force private companies to make the necessary supplies. These would include medical gowns and ventilators, mainly made in China before the eruption of the crisis while U.S. companies were slow to respond to the demand. This leaves Washington to “continue depending on the Asian country.”

In addition, Cuomo invited U.S. companies to consider the money they would make.

“If you are a manufacturer who can convert to make these products and make them quickly … we will purchase them, and we will pay a premium,” he emphasized.

Observers recalled that Trump has criticized New York on occasion for concentrating federal supplies in a New Jersey warehouse.

And on Thursday, referring to governors, Trump tweeted that “the complainers should have been stocked up and ready long before this crisis hit.”

In response, Cuomo said that it made sense to gather the supplies in a central reserve where they could be distributed locally.

For precisely these reasons, it appears that Connecticut is not receiving anti-COVID-19 products. This state is in fourth place with respect to the number of people per capita who are suffering from the coronavirus. Connecticut Gov. Ned Lamont admitted that the Strategic National Stockpile “is empty,” which is equivalent to saying that there will be no personal protection equipment nor ventilators for patients.

The Strategic National Stockpile is the most important collection of medical supplies in the United States.

So one can say that not only is there a deathly pandemic, but the crisis is showing the true face of America’s highly advertised democracy.