US states resist second lockdown
Business Daily
BBC
4.4 • 816 Ratings
🗓️ 2 July 2020
⏱️ 19 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Coronavirus cases have been rising in two dozen states over the last 14 days. Of these, Texas, Florida, Arizona and California have emerged as the country's latest virus epicentres. And yet governors in many of these states are resisting efforts to close down economic and social activity, or a “second lockdown".
Republican strategist Chris Ingram in Tampa, Florida, explains to Business Daily's Ed Butler the thinking behind allowing most Americans, apart from the most vulnerable, to get back to normal life. But some Floridians are not waiting for directions from the government. Ed Boas, owner of Lanes clothing store, describes the precautions he’s taking on his own initiative.
Meanwhile Dr Cheryl Holder, at the Herbert Wertheim College of Medicine at Florida International University, says that while the state is better-equipped to deal with a second wave, she’s concerned many young people think themselves invulnerable. And Wendell Potter, former health insurance broker turned whistle-blower, explains how the US healthcare system is leaving tens of millions of people untreated, potentially worsening the public health crisis.
(Picture: A pamphlet on how to stay safe from COVID-19 being distributed in Miami, Florida; Credit: Chandan Khanna/AFP via Getty Images)
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hello there, I'm Ed Butler. |
| 0:03.1 | Welcome to Business Daily from the BBC. |
| 0:05.5 | Today, can America's healthcare system cope with the coronavirus surge? |
| 0:10.6 | We are now having 40 plus thousand new cases a day. |
| 0:16.0 | I would not be surprised if we go up to 100,000 a day if this does not turn around. |
| 0:22.0 | Health officials warn that our people in Florida listening. |
| 0:26.0 | I think a lot of the reaction has been media hype and that perhaps the sky isn't falling as |
| 0:32.5 | the folks in the media and some in the medical community would like us to believe. |
| 0:36.4 | How bad could it get in the U.S.? That's Business Daily from the BBC. |
| 0:43.9 | We shut down on Saturday, March 14th. |
| 0:49.0 | Miami closed retailer Ed Boas, recalling how the pandemic began for him. |
| 0:53.4 | There had been no official notice to lockdown, but we thought it was the prudent thing to do |
| 1:00.7 | for both our employees and our customers. I myself had been in New York in the end of January |
| 1:07.4 | and I got sick, and it's the sickest I've ever been in my life. |
| 1:11.7 | Nine weeks of lockdown now over, Ed's store, Lanes, is open once again, as are most of the |
| 1:17.5 | others around him. But finding himself in one of the regional hotspots of one of America's most |
| 1:22.4 | infected states, he has got his doubts about how this business as usual approach is going. Because we have |
| 1:29.3 | no real leadership at both either the state or federal level, it has been a real disaster in the |
| 1:36.8 | way this has been rolled out and it was completely unnecessary. This could have been done much more |
| 1:42.3 | effectively. We would have had fewer infections and fewer deaths, I believe. |
| 1:47.8 | Do you know people who got seriously ill? |
| 1:51.0 | One of our employees' parents passed away from the disease, |
... |
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