The United States has failed the pandemic test that bared a bunch of chronic illnesses that the nation is suffering from. The country will not recover from the shock soon, and America will never be the same either.
According to US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the growth in the number of cases of coronavirus infection will increase to 200,000 a day by June 1 of this year. The number of daily deaths will grow to 3,000. This will be the price that the USA will have to pay as more than a half of states have refused from quarantine.
US President Donald Trump has revised his forecast for the coronavirus death toll. In March, he said that the death toll from the novel virus could reach 50,000 people, but his current forecast is 100,000.
The United States was completely unprepared for the pandemic, George Packer wrote in an article "We are living in a failed state" for The Atlantic. The author points out that the virus has exposed the chronic diseases of the United States: the corruption of the political class, the ossification of bureaucracy, the "heartlessness" of economy, the lack of unity among the population that had not seen medical treatment for many years.
“We had learned to live, uncomfortably, with the symptoms. It took the scale and intimacy of a pandemic to expose their severity—to shock Americans with the recognition that we are in the high-risk category,” the author wrote.
Packer cracks down on Donald Trump and his administration for incompetence, bravado, lies, inaction and lack of action plans in a pandemic.
The appeal from the governors to the federal authorities ended up with the latter having no masks and protective suits, no ventilators, etc., while their distribution on a competitive basis generated greed for profit.
“When a government doctor tried to warn the public of the danger, the White House took the mic and politicized the message,” the article reads.
As for the people, they continue insulting each other on social media. All moth-eaten and imaginary problems continue eating the nation from inside: racial, proprietary, political disagreements, the strife between urban and rural populations, migrants and Native Americans, and so on and so forth – all that has become particularly acute in the United States today.
Of course, saving lives is a top priority, but it is equally important for the USA to overcome the post-pandemic economic crisis, which will be long and slow.
According to most recent reports, the total number of unemployed has increased to 30.3 million people in six weeks. The scale of layoffs has ruined the entire job growth trend in the United States after the 2008 recession. In the first quarter of this year, the national economy has declined by 4.8%, and a fall that is expected to take place from April to June is expected to be the worst since WWII.
Credit Suisse predicts a fall in GDP of 33.5%, while Goldman Sachs - by 34% with an unemployment rate of 15%.
The Americans will be more careful in their movements as a result of the psychological shock. They will be spending less and saving more, because the economy that was built to grow on consumption will stagnate. Printing extra dollars and handing out extra loans will lead to a sharp increase in public debt and inflation.
Big business will continue to lose global supply chains. Production will return to the United States, but goods will become more expensive due to rising costs, which will lead to a drop in the real income of the Americans. This, in turn, will raise the level of labor and political conflicts.
The United States will return to the real sector of the economy (it provides 20% of GDP, while 80% accounts for speculative economy), where China is stronger.
The dollar will cease to be a commodity, speculation in oil futures will go down in history. A collapse in stock indices may trigger a collapse of the entire debt market and prevailing pricing models, the Bretton Woods system and the petrodollar system. US will lose the opportunity to impose sanctions on other countries and the world will eyewitness the decline of the superpower on clay feet.