WASHINGTON — More than four months into fighting the coronavirus in the United States, the shared sacrifice of millions of Americans suspending their lives — with jobs lost, businesses shuttered, daily routines upended — has not been enough to beat back a virus whose staying power around the world is only still being grasped. The number of new U.S. cases this last week surged dangerously high, to levels not ever seen in the course of the pandemic, especially in states that had rushed to reopen their economies. The result has been a realization for many Americans that however much they have yearned for a return to normalcy, their leaders have failed to control the coronavirus pandemic. “There has to be a clear coherent sustained communication, and that has absolutely not happened,” said Dr. William Schaffner, an infectious diseases specialist at Vanderbilt University in Nashville. That futile hope helped create an unrealistic expectation that the shutdown, while intense, would not be for long, and that when it was lifted life would return to normal.

Source: New York Times June 27, 2020 14:54 UTC