US states improvise rules to combat coronavirus in absence of federal leadership

Trump did not issue guidelines until Monday, leaving it up to patchwork of state and local authorities to decide on rules

In Ohio and Massachusetts they closed restaurants and bars, in Florida they closed beaches and at least 32 states closed schools.

The emergency measures brought in across America to combat coronavirus have all been slightly different from state to state but for weeks they have had one thing in common: nobody was acting on guidelines issued by the federal government, because there werent any.

You see a whole hodgepodge of efforts being taken across the country, said Andrew Cuomo, the governor of New York, which announced a tri-state agreement on Monday with neighboring New Jersey and Connecticut on Monday to close all gyms, movie theaters and casinos.

This state is doing this, this state is doing this, this city is doing this its chaos. I think it actually feeds the feeling that the countrys out of control and there is no clear direction This is a national problem, and we need federal leadership.

A country of 330 million people with regional and economic diversity spanning from the tourist district of New Orleans to the frozen fracking grounds of Alaska will necessarily rely on local leadership to help meet local needs.

But one of the most powerful lessons to emerge in the first months of the global health emergency, analysts say, has been the ability of an organized national government response to slow the spread of coronavirus. China, South Korea, and Japan used mandatory quarantines, shutdowns and curfews to go from more than a 1,000 new cases per day each to figures now in the low-tens.

You look at the countries who have handled this, I dont care if its China, South Korea, Italy, they were all handled by national leadership, said Cuomo, a Democrat. This is a national problem. It cannot be done in a piecemeal method. You need federal parameters.

Original Article : HERE ;

from MetNews https://metnews.pw/us-states-improvise-rules-to-combat-coronavirus-in-absence-of-federal-leadership/