8 OPINION
EDITORIAL COVID-19 pandemic is far from over; government needs to take virus seriously As COVID-19 cases are on the rise, it is clear that something didn’t go right when handling this pandemic. Some of the blame for the case rises can be pointed at the irresponsibility from the people in the country but the government should be held to the utmost accountability for the current state of the country. From the very beginning, the White House downplayed the severity of COVID-19 which led to a lack of transparency between the people in government. This lack of transparency and lack of planning was combated by the CDC but it seems it wasn’t enough to stop case spikes. The CDC can only do so much when the leaders of the United States government try to downplay the dire nature of a global pandemic that has claimed the lives of over 200,000 Americans. From the very start, we should have been hearing from government officials, including the president, of the severity of this virus. The lack of clarity on what was going on has had a huge impact on many people’s decisions on how to handle the virus. Shutdowns were happening and people were losing their jobs and their livelihoods. Even now, cases are rising and having effects on schools as well. Across the nation, more and more schools are shutting down. In Crown Point, cases are becoming much more apparent and many students and staff have already been quarantined. Many schools are not being directed properly to abide by safety regulations regarding COVID-19. They are also not getting the resources and funds they need from the government to run effectively during these times. The effects of this pandemic could have been less drastic if the communication at the beginning from the White House and government had been crystal clear on what this pandemic was capable of. Not only that, but it needed to be acted on much sooner than it was, as WHO declared the virus a global health emergency in late January, yet no major action was taken to stop this virus in the U.S. until it was declared a national emergency in mid March. The effects of the pandemic were already in full swing before action was taken. The mishandling led many people to believe that they could live their normal lives without further thought as the effects were greatly downplayed. Even recently the president has deemed COVID-19 as something Americans should not be afraid of. People should be afraid of this. Cases are rising and more people are dying and spreading this virus to others. This pandemic was greatly mishandled and directed from the beginning and it is still being mishandled. The United States will continue to see the drastic effects of this virus for some time.
