U.S. response to virus splinters into acrimony and uncertainty

WASHINGTON: Six weeks after U.S. President Donald Trump declared a national emergency over the spreading new coronavirus, the United States is deeply divided over the correct economic and health response.

What was meant as a grand experiment in fast action, nearly $3 trillion in federal support to keep U.S. companies and individuals afloat as economic activity froze, is slipping into a morass of finger-pointing and uncertainty.

Millions of workers in the world's largest economy are wondering when their unemployment benefits will arrive or even when they might be able to register for them. Groups of businesses are squaring off to compete for help. State and city governments are going ontheir own, sometimes conflicting, ways in decisions on when to let business reopen during an infectious national health crisis that does not respect borders.


As a health matter, the approach has also become a mosaic, with a president prone to recommending off-the-cuff and even potentially dangerous remedies, and state officials who agree generically that “more” testing is needed but not exactly on how much more would be required for public safety.

Meanwhile the United States' more than 50,000 COVID-19 deaths are the most in the world, though on a population-adjusted basis its roughly 160 deaths per million as of last week are well below major European nations like Italy, France and Spain.