Item

City Enters Phase 4 of Pretending Coronavirus is Over

Title (Dublin Core)

City Enters Phase 4 of Pretending Coronavirus is Over

Description (Dublin Core)

Back in March and April, governors juggled simultaneous stay-at-home orders and subsequent re-opening plans to minimize the dual threats of COVID-19 and economic recession. Reopening plans came with phases; Each phase had specific numbers that had to be met, such as percent decline in new cases, an r0 below 1, and especially increased testing capabilities. A horrific and cruel pattern of inaction emerged, and by the time May rolled around, many states were unable to meet even the earliest guidelines to begin reopening. After squandering precious time to fight the virus, many governments-- included in states like Florida and Arizona-- reopened the economy, declaring the pandemic over and the economy booming.

As of today, June 22nd, Florida has over 100,000 COVID cases and Arizona just over 50,000. Both states have reported single day increases of over 3,000 and rank among some of the worst coronavirus hot spots in the world.

This screenshot of an Onion article uses satire and dark humor to capture this tragedy. If governors like Ron DeSantis and Doug Ducey had taken the threat of COVID seriously and followed the guidelines for reopening, they could have saved tens of thousands of lives. If President Donald Trump had used his power to manufacture more tests or PPE, he could have saved hundreds of thousands of lives. Instead, our leaders failed us, manipulating the numbers or ignoring the numbers altogether, simply proclaiming the pandemic over because they wished it to be so.

This satirical article would almost be funny, but it's not. It's not funny. It's infuriating, heartbreaking, macabre; It's so many things but none of them make me feel like laughing.

Date (Dublin Core)

June 15, 2020

Creator (Dublin Core)

The Onion

Contributor (Dublin Core)

Carolyn Evans

Type (Dublin Core)

article

Link (Bibliographic Ontology)

https://local.theonion.com/city-enters-phase-4-of-pretending-coronavirus-over-1844037065
https://web.archive.org/web/20200704232721/https://local.theonion.com/city-enters-phase-4-of-pretending-coronavirus-over-1844037065

Publisher (Dublin Core)

The Onion

Controlled Vocabulary (Dublin Core)

English Pandemic Skeptics
English Consumer Culture (shopping, dinning...)
English Economy
English Public Space
English Government State

Curator's Tags (Omeka Classic)

pretending
reopening
phases
PPE
Ron DeSantis
satire
Doug Ducey

Linked Data (Dublin Core)

My First TikTok Dance

Date Submitted (Dublin Core)

06/22/2020

Date Modified (Dublin Core)

07/04/2020

Item sets

Covid 19

This item was submitted on June 22, 2020 by Carolyn Evans using the form “Share Your Story” on the site “A Journal of the Plague Year”: https://covid-19archive.org/s/archive

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