COVID-19 in the US election campaign

Countries around the world have been dealing with the COVID-19 pandemic largely on two levels: (1) the infections and deaths the virus has caused and (2) the economic losses inflicted on both the government and the private sector.

The pandemic has now become a major political issue in the United States as former President Barack Obama of the Democratic Party, in a viral commencement address to graduating college students around the country, said: “This pandemic has fully, finally torn back the curtain on the idea that many of the folks in charge know what they are doing.” He did not mention names but there was no doubt in anyone’s mind that he was referring to Republican President Donald Trump.

President Trump responded to Obama’s speech with a statement to reporters that his predecessor in the White House was “grossly incompetent.”

The US has become the epicenter of the pandemic. It started in Wuhan, China, in December, 2019, then jumped to nearby countries, including the Philippines. It them leaped to Europe, notably, Italy, Spain, and United Kingdom, whose infections and deaths soon overtook those in China. Then it jumped across the Atlantic Ocean to the United States, which is now the world epicenter of the pandemic, with Brazil as the center in Latin America.

At the start of this week, there were over 4.7 million COVID-29 cases and over 300,000 deaths around the world. The US had nearly 1.5 million infections and over 89,000 deaths. And every hour, the figures were rising on all fronts.

The pandemic is bound to be a major issue in the coming US presidential election in November. Trump is already suffering from the fact that while he was elected by a vote of the Electoral College with 304 votes to Hilary Clinton’s 227, Clinton had three million more popular votes – 65,853,514 to Trump’s 62,984,828.

The US now has the most COVID-19 infections and deaths in the world and the Trump administration has been accused of inaction when the virus problem came up and on so many fronts – in ignoring the early warning signs, inadequate hospital facilities, and now Trump’s efforts to end the various states’ quarantines to get the battered national economy going.

The Philippines continues its close ties with the US, from which we got our system of government and which has long been our ally in many world disputes. We also have some 5 million Filipinos in the US today constantly sending news to their families here about their life in the US.

That life is now being dominated by the COVID-19 pandemic and the fast-nearing election in November.