Containing COVID-19 - A Responsibility of the People - An Obligation of Government

Given the persistent, infectious and deadly prevalence of COVID-19 amongst humanity, the responsibility to containing the pesky pathogen rests with the people in spite of any obligation of government, or the lack thereof, towards snuffing out the destructive disease.

With growing worldwide COVID-19 infections surpassing 13-million cases and with deaths exceeding 574,000 amid continuing rapid disease spread in the Americas and re-flare-ups in Asia and Europe, humanity faces the daunting task of still trying to contain the highly contagious pandemic under an atmosphere of political indifference and societal stupidity in far too many jurisdictions.

Although re-flare-ups of Novel Coronavirus cases in Asia and in Europe are concerning, the disease poses a far lesser threat to the two-continents than it now holds over the Americas, especially in the United States (US) and in Brazil, where the highly contagious COVID-19 is running amok in communities that have lacked national and rational leadership to successfully push back against greater spread. 

People and governments in Asia and Europe, who were hit hard by the pandemic, have been able to contain the disease spread much better than folks in the Americas because of the responsibility taken by the individual people to test, contact-trace, isolate, treat, to stay-at-home, to social distance and to wear facial masks in order to flatten COVID-19's curve. Moreover, governments on both continents readily accepted their obligations as keepers of the public health by fighting the disease at the national level.

On the other hand, in the Americas, where local and state governments, and the people have been tasked to fight COVID-19 alone in the absence of fulfillments of obligations to protect the public health at the national level, the states and the people did, for a short time, achieve some success at pushing back against COVID-19. But under pressure from the national government, as in the case in the US, to re-open economies, premature actions to that affect have now materialized into skyrocketing record number of COVID-19 cases. 

Novel Coronavirus cases in the US today stand at 3,387,053, the highest in the world; and deaths have reached the gruesome number of 135,984, the highest number of deaths from COVID-19 of any country. Brazil is closing in on 1.9-million cases and 73,000 deaths, the second highest in the world. The wearing of facial masks, even though science proves they reduce disease spread, has also been stupidly criticized, resisted and politicized in both the US and Brazil.

Fearing the persistent, infectious and deadly prevalence of COVID-19 in the Americas, the people must now assume greater responsibility to containing the pandemic by means proved to combat the disease: testing, contact-tracing, isolating, treating, staying-at-home, social distancing and wearing facial masks. And some jurisdictions may have to rollback premature and planned openings of their economies in order to finally contain the deadly contagion in the Americas.