USA – A US public health chief told Congress on Tuesday that coronavirus has “brought this nation to its knees” as America struggles with more than 2.3 million confirmed cases and over 121,000 deaths so far.
The Director of the federal Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), said in a hearing in Washington that core public health capabilities in the US had been vastly underfunded for a long time and needed urgent investment.
“We have all done the best that we can do to tackle this virus and the reality is that it’s brought this nation to its knees,” Redfield told the House energy and commerce committee.
“We are probably going to spend $7tn because of one little virus,” added Redfield.
He also said that the US had “used the capacity that we have” to confront the pandemic but that “the critics will be there”.
The Trump administration has been criticised for a slow and shaky early response to coronavirus as it spread from Asia and Europe to the US in early 2020, especially President Donald Trump who repeatedly downplayed the risk of Covid-19 and the damage it would come to wreak upon the US.
