A Fumbled Global Response to the Virus in a Leadership Void
Source: New York Times
A Fumbled Global Response to the Virus in a Leadership Void
While world leaders are at last speaking out about the gravity of the pandemic, their voices are less a choir than a cacophony, with the United States absent from its traditional conductor role.
By Mark Landler
Published March 11, 2020
Updated March 12, 2020, 2:19 a.m. ET
LONDON — In Frankfurt, the president of the European Central Bank warned that the coronavirus could trigger an economic crash as dire as that of 2008. In Berlin, the German chancellor warned the virus could infect two-thirds of her country’s population. In London, the British prime minister rolled out a nearly $40 billion rescue package to cushion his economy from the shock.
As the toll of those afflicted by the virus continued to soar and financial markets from Tokyo to New York continued to swoon, world leaders are finally starting to find their voices about the gravity of what is now officially a pandemic.
Yet it remains less a choir than a cacophony — a dissonant babble of politicians all struggling, in their own way, to cope with the manifold challenges posed by the virus, from its crushing burden on hospitals and health care workers to its economic devastation and rising death toll.
The choir also lacks a conductor, a role played through most of the post-World War II era by the United States.
President Trump has failed to work with other leaders to fashion a common response, preferring to promote his border wall over the scientific advice of his own medical experts.
In an Oval Office address on Wednesday night, he imposed a 30-day ban on travel from Europe to the United States, claiming, without evidence, that the European Union’s lax initial response had brought more cases of the virus across the Atlantic, with “a large number of new clusters” seeded by travelers from the Continent.
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Read more: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/11/world/europe/coronavirus-leadership-trump.html