Meanwhile, many of the 17 million workers laid off in the past three weeks have found it almost impossible to apply for unemployment compensation, with state systems overloaded, websites crashing and telephone calls unanswered. Biden says nothing about any of this and proposes nothing to relieve the acute suffering and deprivation in working-class neighborhoods throughout the country.
Biden tacks on a few mild criticisms of the present occupant of the White House, referring to "the administration's failure to plan, to prepare, to honestly assess and communicate the threat to the nation." He treads carefully, however, and avoids specifics, since on the question of preparations to meet a pandemic, Trump did nothing more than follow in the footsteps of the Obama-Biden administration, which failed even to rebuild the US disaster stockpile after it was depleted by the H1N1 and Ebola epidemics.
It is revealing that Biden avoids even referring to the impact of the COVID-19 epidemic until the final paragraph of his op-ed, and then only in the vaguest generalities: "The American people have already paid too high a price in illness, death and economic loss."
No one reading this banal tract would have the slightest inkling that the United States has just gone through the worst week in its history, from a public health standpoint, or that the weeks ahead are likely to be even worse.
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