Professor Stephen Maceno says the US was initially united on COVID lockdowns but quickly split over whether to maintain them. #COVID
Category
🗞
NewsTranscript
00:00And, of course, the Covid pandemic hit at a time of deepening divisions as President
00:04Trump's administration polarised opponents and supporters.
00:08So how did that play out when it came to the response in the USA?
00:13Yes, I think that was a major factor.
00:16I think the United States is an extremely polarised society, more so than other Western
00:20European countries in comparison, and 2020 was an election year.
00:27So the pandemic really arrived in February and March 2020.
00:33For a time, there was a period when all of the states acted in unity to close their schools.
00:39Schools closed across the entire United States very quickly.
00:44And business closures and lockdowns likewise took place almost uniformly across the entire
00:49country for four to six, maybe eight weeks.
00:52But then as spring and summer began, the two, the states dominated by the Republicans
01:00on the one side of the Democrats on the other side, diverged in their approaches, with Republican
01:06states opening much more quickly, Democratic states, keeping their lockdowns in place much
01:12longer.
01:13And in particular, when the fall came around, many schools in Republican states tended to
01:17open.
01:18In Florida, in fact, Governor Ron DeSantis mandated that all of the schools in the state
01:22should be open.