Allies 'alarmed' by increase in US COVID-19 cases: Feels 'like the US has given up'

The world is shocked and alarmed as the United States refuses to lockdown as COVID-19 cases increase.

Florida, Texas, Arkansas and other states are spiking cases of the coronavirus across a country that purports to be the richest and most powerful in the world.

"Health experts in countries with falling case numbers are watching with a growing sense of alarm and disbelief, with many wondering why virus-stricken U.S. states continue to reopen and why the advice of scientists is often ignored," said the Washington Post in a Friday report.

“It really does feel like the U.S. has given up,” said infectious-diseases specialist Siouxsie Wiles, at the University of Auckland in New Zealand. The country was one of the first to completely shut down and isolate. As a result, they have few cases six months after the outbreak.

“I can’t imagine what it must be like having to go to work knowing it’s unsafe,” Wiles said. “It’s hard to see how this ends. There are just going to be more and more people infected, and more and more deaths. It’s heartbreaking.”

China, which stopped reporting cases and deaths as their cases dramatically increased, has managed to bring it down in the past week using quarantine and sheltering in place. When they reopened and cases spiked, they sealed off neighborhoods and began restricting again.

"Meanwhile, President Trump maintains that the United States will not shut down a second time, although a surge in cases has convinced governors in some states, including Arizona, to walk back their opposition to mandatory face coverings in public," the Post noted.

in Europe, where cases spiked early but have decreased over the past month, there is a concern that reopening to United States travelers could endanger their countries.

A German public broadcaster reported this week: "Has the U.S. given up its fight against coronavirus?”

Even a conservative Switzerland newspaper, the Neue Zürcher Zeitung, claimed, “U.S. increasingly accepts rising COVID-19 numbers.”

“The only thing one can say with certainty: There’s nothing surprising about this development,” the Swiss report said, talking about the crowded parties from Memorial Day weekend, two weeks ago.

Some international scientists note that the U.S. had trouble testing, which may account for the early days of high cases, but health sciences professor Thomas Gerlinger, at the University of Bielefeld in Germany, explained that it didn't "turn into a political action plan" for the president to help stop the virus.

Karl Lauterbach, a member of the German parliament for the Social Democrats, noted that Germany has relied on the research from U.S. scientists who seem to be helping the rest of the world, but are being ignored in their own country.

"Lauterbach cited in particular the work of Marc Lipsitch, a professor of epidemiology at Harvard University, whose research with colleagues recently suggested that forms of social distancing may have to remain in place into 2022," said the Post. "Lipsitch’s work, Lauterbach said, helped him to convince German Vice Chancellor Olaf Scholz that the pandemic will be “the new normal” for the time being, and it impacted German officials’ thinking on how long their strategy should be in place."

Still, the United States opened anyway, and some cities aren't even mandating masks.

“I don’t understand that logic,” the Post cited University of Berlin health management professor Reinhard Busse.

“Like many other aspects of our country, the CDC’s ability to function well is being severely handicapped by the interference coming from the White House,” said Harvard epidemiologist Lipsitch. “All of us in public health very much hope that this is not a permanent condition of the CDC.”

Read the full Post report.