Global Public Health Experts Alarmed By the US Economy Reopening

Despite the rising number of COVID-19 infections in some states, the US economy is continuing to reopen. President Donald Trump has also indicated he will not ask for businesses to shut down, regardless of the consequences.

While the country is lifting lockdown orders, health specialists all over the world are concerned over the rising numbers of infections in some areas in the US. “It really does feel like the US has given up,” Siouxsie Wiles, an infectious disease specialist at the University of Auckland, told the Washington Post.

Michael Rozier, a public health and ethics professor at St. Louis University, tweeted that the US government's fight against the coronavirus is starting to resemble its fight against gun violence. 

“The U.S. will endure much higher, persistent negative effects from something that other countries have solved; we’ll normalize it and convince ourselves nothing can be done,” Rozier added.

Despite the experts' concerns, the US government is encouraging Americans to go back to normal. “We won’t be closing the country again. We won’t have to do that,” President Donald Trump said.
However, an Associated Press survey has shown that many Americans don't share their government's laid-back attitude to the COVID-19 pandemic – eighty-three percent responded they were concerned that removing lockdown measures too fast could cause a rise in infections.