Name: Covid -19:為什麼美國的死亡人數如此之高？| 經濟學家》雜誌 (Covid-19: Why is America’s death toll so high? | The Economist)
Uploaded: 2021-01-14T10:53:03.000Z
Duration: 9 min 58 s
Description: 【看影片學英語】數萬部 YouTube 影片，搭配英漢字典即點即查，輕鬆掌握單字發音與用法，長久累積看電影不必再看字幕。學這些英文用法：武漢肺炎,新型冠狀病毒,新冠肺炎,COVID-19

America is now the epicentre of the coronavirus pandemic

America has passed the grim milestone of 20,500 deaths...

...to overtake Italy as the world's worst-hit nation

Many blame the president for the scale of the crisis

These are the lonely times for a president

And he's made just about all of them wrong

But the causes of America's failings in dealing with the virus...

Independent of Donald Trump, America is a country that always...

...would have found fighting a pandemic to be difficult...

When the novel coronavirus hit America...

...President Donald Trump's administration was slow to act

Early on the president was, you know, reassuring Americans that...

We have it very much under control in this country

...and now they've gotten very much better

He seemed to be worried about the stockmarket...

And I think that there was a series of critical weeks...

The administration's initial complacency...

...was set to store up problems for the weeks ahead

There was a sense that we didn't need to develop...

...the amount of ventilators that we had...

...the number of personal protective equipment...

And what we find now is that we're in the midst of...

...kind of a national shortage of those things

On March 9th the Trump administration promised millions of test kits...

...crucial to monitor the spread of the virus

...only around 200,000 tests had been completed

...and right now the federal government is failing

But this failure wasn't entirely down to President Trump's inaction

Thousands of Americans may have been exposed to the coronavirus...

The first tests created by the Centres for Disease Control...

Private and academic labs around the country...

...but were initially hampered by strict regulations...

That's a technical failing and a bureaucratic failing that...

...perhaps could be laid on the president

But one of the things about America is that...

...public-health authority is incredibly devolved...

...to states and cities in terms of how they respond...

...so that the federal government actually can't order these things

America's federal system grants states the authority...

...to decide when and how to respond in a...

...public-health crisis like this pandemic

And every state has responded differently

The state's 90m residents are being told to stay at home as much as possible

...the governor of New York announced a state-wide lockdown on March 20th

We're going to put out an executive order today...

...spring breakers were revelling on beaches

At the end of the day, I'm not going to let it stop me from partying

Here, there would be no lockdown for almost another two weeks

During which time the virus continued to spread across the country

Some states called for non-essential businesses to be closed...

...and for people to stay at home much earlier than others

The fact that borders remain open between the states...

While some states might have, kind of, shut down at this time...

...you know, California, Washington, Oregon...

...if a resident from there goes to Florida and then comes back...

...you can see how it could exponentiate from there

That's the weakness of a system that relies on decision-makers...

...in 50 states and numerous jurisdictions

And efforts to halt the spread of the virus...

...have been impeded by another aspect of America's political system

They want to use a deadly virus as a political weapon...

Partisan politics are crippling America's response...

Politics has infected America's handling of the outbreak

Republican and right-leaning politicians...

...have been slower to impose restrictions than Democrats

...unless it is necessary for you to go out

...it starts in cities, so it's taken off in...

...places like New York and Seattle and California

And these are places that tend to have Democratic mayors...

When political scientists, kind of, try and account for...

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Covid -19:為什麼美國的死亡人數如此之高？| 經濟學家》雜誌 (Covid-19: Why is America’s death toll so high? | The Economist)

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