Wednesday, October 7, 2020

The New Yorker

 America, the Infected and Vulnerable

Just as the White House became an epicenter of the pandemic and congressional negotiations on the ailing economy collapsed, the Pentagon made its own startling announcement on Tuesday. The entire Joint Chiefs of Staff—the highest-ranking officers from the Army, Navy, Air Force, Coast Guard, and other services—went into quarantine for two weeks. These are not only commanders who control the world’s mightiest military, run wars, order bombings, and authorize special-operations raids; they are part of the most consistent and sane wing of the American government right now.

The Joint Chiefs are the highest-ranking members of the military to be impacted by the pandemic, but far from the only ones. As of Wednesday morning, almost seventy thousand members or employees of the military—who put their lives at risk daily to protect the country—have been infected, the Pentagon reported on a special Web site about covid-19. Almost forty per cent of the two hundred and thirty-one U.S. military installations around the world still face travel restrictions because of the pandemic. From multiple angles, including the fact that President Trump is also Commander-in-Chief, the coronavirus is now a genuine national-security threat for the United States. And the rest of the world knows it. The potential dangers abound. Read on....

https://www.newyorker.com/news/our-columnists/america-the-infected-and-vulnerable

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