Published on July 20, 2020 at 01:47AM by Joel Achenbach, William Wan, Karin Brulliard and Chelsea Janes, The Washington Post
Isabelle Papadimitriou, 64, a respiratory therapist in Dallas, had been treating a surge of patients as the Texas economy reopened. She developed coronavirus symptoms June 27 and tested positive two days later. The disease was swift and brutal. She died the morning of the Fourth of July.
The holiday had always been her daughter's favorite. Fiana Tulip loved the family cookouts, the fireworks, the feeling of America united. Now, she wonders whether she'll ever be able to celebrate it again. In mourning, she's furious.
Tulip, 40, had seen her country fail to control the virus. She had seen Texas ease restrictions even as case counts and hospitalizations soared. She had seen fellow citizens refuse to wear a mask or engage in social distancing.
"I feel like her death was a hundred percent preventable. I'm angry at the Trump administration. I'm angry with the state of our politics. I'm angry at the people who even now refuse to wear masks," she said.
Six months after the coronavirus appeared in America, the nation has failed spectacularly to contain it. The country's ineffective response has shocked observers around the planet.
Many countries have rigorously driven infection rates nearly to zero. In the United States, coronavirus transmission is out of control. The national response is fragmented, shot through with political rancor and culture-war divisiveness. Testing shortcomings that revealed themselves in March have become acute in July, with week-long waits for results leaving the country blind to real-time virus spread and rendering contact tracing nearly irrelevant.
The United States may be heading toward a new spasm of wrenching economic shutdowns, or to another massive spike in preventable deaths from covid-19 - or possibly both.
How the world's richest country...
Comments
Post a Comment