United States President Donald Trump speaks to reporters at the White House. Photo / AP
United States President Donald Trump speaks to reporters at the White House. Photo / AP
EDITORIAL:
As the tolls from Covid-19 continue to mount globally, so do the political implications.
One of the intriguing aspects of the recovery of British Prime Minister Boris Johnson, thanks in part to Kiwi nurse Jenny McGee, is whether it will result in actual policy changes to benefit the healthsector there.
The National Health Service has survived a decade of austerity under Conservative rule. Experts say budget cuts and Brexit preparations have hampered the NHS in its response to the virus emergency.
Although polls show Johnson and his party remain popular, critics say the Government's stewardship of the crisis was slow and initially had an element of science experiment over 'herd immunity'.
At least 19 healthcare workers have died in the outbreak, and with 94,800 cases and more than 12,000 deaths, the UK has been one of the worst-hit countries.
The World Health Organisation (WHO) has warned that the coronavirus has not yet peaked despite a number of countries undergoing a slow in the number of new cases and deaths. https://t.co/b6DBTsFT42
Elsewhere in Europe, Sweden has gone its own way to a greater extent than the UK, with its low-key approach to the virus. Large gatherings are banned, some schools are closed but businesses and cafes are largely open.
With about 11,400 cases and 1000 deaths, it has so far been less successful than neighbours Norway (6600 cases, 140 deaths) and Denmark (6700, 300) which imposed lockdowns.
Sweden, with 10 million people, has a virus death rate of more than 88 per million, compared with about 47 per million in Denmark, a nation of 5.8 million. A sharp spike in deaths caused Swedish Prime Minister Stefan Lofven to propose an emergency law allowing the quick closure of public venues and transportation if needed.
Covid-19 has done what few world leaders have succeeded at and caused problems for Russian President Vladimir Putin. A vote on April 22 was meant to usher in constitutional reforms that would have allowed him to remain in power until 2036. But the coronavirus has caused the election to be postponed.
Analysis: Trump has spent more than 22 hours in the past month and a half speaking at coronavirus briefings https://t.co/IE7ALcKwAz
In the United States, the pandemic has caused political tremors this week.
On Tuesday, President Donald Trump engaged in a bad-tempered battle with the media over his handling of the emergency. He insisted that he will decide when the country reopens, and at one point in the briefing wrongly asserted that: "When somebody is the president of the United States, the authority is total."
Yesterday he backed away from the claim and put the onus for testing on the states.
The controversy over who has the most power, responsibility and blame - the president or the state governors who imposed stay-at-home orders - has become the third headache of the US outbreak after the health and economic crises.
The same dynamic has occurred in Brazil, with President Jair Bolsonaro feuding with the governors of Rio de Janeiro and Sao Paulo, who have imposed restrictions in their states.
Trump alternates between bluster over his authority and contradictory statements about the federal Government only being a back-up to governors and local officials, who under the constitution oversee public health safety in their states.
Yesterday Trump said he had “total authority” over the states’ reopening plans. Today he says they are in charge of their own testing: “We have always wanted the states to do the testing.”
It has been striking how tentative Trump has been in using the organisational and symbolic power of the presidency to direct the response. State governors find themselves in the same position as foreign rulers over the past few years of struggling with a leader of the free world who seems uncomfortable in the role.
Mainly Democratic governors set up separate state accords with California, Oregon and Washington on the west coast and New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Massachusettes, Delaware, Rhode Island and Connecticut in the northeast. They want to co-ordinate their efforts to reopen on their own timetables.
And, politically, it's been a sharper battle in NZ this week. As we've all seen, the political dilemmas are running in concert with medical and economic ones - with no clear answers.
