 So, believe it or not, there was a time when the United States managed to flatten the curve. However, fast forward to today and not so much. We are now hitting record highs when it comes to daily COVID-19 cases with states like Arizona, Texas, and South Carolina being the newest hotspots, as the Verd reports here. Now, when you compare us to other developed countries, they've been able to get COVID-19 under control. But we have not been able to do that. And it is just genuinely embarrassing, especially now, since the EU is literally considering banning travel from the United States since we're not taking it seriously. And when I say we are not taking it seriously, let me be more specific. I mean, governments, multi-billion dollar companies, but also the people. Usually, I exempt the people from my criticism of society's failures, but if you are one of the people who are refusing to wear a mask because you think it infringes on your liberty, you're part of the problem. You're part of the problem. You don't complain that the government requires you to wear clothing in public. You don't complain that the government requires you to wear seatbelts. So if you think a mask is too much to expect during a pandemic, you're part of the problem. But it is also the case that we do have institutions that are part of the problem as well. For example, you have large companies not taking this seriously. For example, any large retail chains like Walmart should be requiring every single customer to wear a mask. Otherwise, they don't get to enter the store. And on top of that, you have some companies taking it so far as to just pretend like COVID-19 is no longer a thing. American Airlines, for example, they started booking at full capacity again. Let me repeat that. People are going to be at full capacity in a tight space during a pandemic. If that sounds like a horrible idea to you, it's because it is. Now on top of that, people were already not necessarily comfortable with the prolonged lockdown, I think rightfully so, because they had no economic support. I mean, if you're losing your job, if you can't go to work, what are you supposed to do? The government gave us one payment of $1,200 per person. I didn't get mine until mid-nay. So a lot of people maybe are expecting that one-time payment, still haven't gotten it. There's not really any serious conversations about whether or not we're going to give them more money. It's just been a bungled response. And Donald Trump definitely fumbled from the very beginning of this pandemic, but he's not improving. He's not trying to do better. He's literally now making matters worse as his administration is now stopping funding for over a dozen COVID-19 testing sites at a time when we should be increasing testing. And he's now setting his sights on what's left of the Affordable Care Act, and he's trying to give it the final death blow. And as he tries to do away with Obamacare and its entirety, he has nothing to replace it with. Now, I've said time and again, I'm not a fan of the Affordable Care Act. It doesn't go nearly as far as it should go. I believe in a national health system, but my compromise is single-payer Medicare for all, where instead of having socialized health care, we have socialized insurance. But I mean, the best we got out of a democratic administration was a right-wing policy. So because, you know, Democrats adopted the right-wing policy, hoping to get Republicans on board, now they have nothing. Like their only only answer is to do no reform. Just repeal the Affordable Care Act and let the people who rely on it just suffer not have any insurance whatsoever. I mean, he's doing this during a pandemic. Very clearly for political purposes, but I think he believes this is going to help him get re-elected if he can brag to his people that he got rid of Obamacare. So as CNN reports, in the midst of a global pandemic with a presidential election just months away, the Justice Department asked the Supreme Court on Thursday to invalidate the Affordable Care Act, the landmark healthcare law that enabled millions of Americans to get insurance coverage, and that remains in effect despite the pending legal challenge. In a late night filing, Solicitor General Noel Francisco said that once the law's individual coverage mandate and two key provisions are invalidated, the remainder of the ACA should not be allowed to remain in effect. The justices will hear arguments in the case sometime next term, although it is unclear if they will occur before the November election. So when he could be saying, look, we're going to do single payer, but specifically in a limited scope for COVID-19 patients, what he's saying is, you know what, that shitty healthcare that you have that you already aren't too happy with, we're going to get rid of that. Even though it's better than nothing, we're going to get rid of that too during a pandemic. And guess what? If people lose their healthcare, if people are afraid to go see a doctor thinking that they might have COVID-19 and not want to pay for all the medical bills that come out of that, it's going to be even longer than we have to deal with this pandemic. So I mean, we should be embarrassed. Our response to COVID-19 has been absolutely pathetic. It's unacceptable. If we just did everything correct from the get go, we would be like other countries where we start to reopen and not have to worry about, you know, it resurging so soon, but I mean, we're not even in a second wave. Other countries have to worry about a second wave as well, but we're not even in a second wave. We're still in our first wave. We flatten the curve and we collectively agree to society that we should take this seriously. And now we're just like, I'm done with this. Let's just pretend like it doesn't exist. Okay. It doesn't work that way. COVID-19 will be a thing regardless if we want to admit that it is or not, but the response has been awful. And you'd think that during an election year, Trump would want to get this handled under control so he can brag to people about the great job that he's done. But I mean, he's jumping to step B, right? He's not trying to tackle this. He's just already bragging about the phenomenal job that he's done. It's honestly just astonishing what's happening. This is laughable. This is absolutely laughable. I mean, our government is completely incapable of dealing with a pandemic. And even if this is complicated and new to all of us who are alive today, I mean, there are procedures, there are steps you take to minimize the effect of this. But we just, we threw all that out the window. And now people are rebelling against masks because Donald Trump won't equivocally, unequivocally tell his supporters that it's not some type of deep state conspiracy. The government isn't acting. Democrats aren't doing enough. Most Democrats aren't doing enough. I shouldn't say all of them. And we're just at this point where we're going to just reopen the economy as if it's not a thing and say to hell with it. It's really deeply sad. And I don't blame the other countries for banning travel from the US. I mean, if we can't get it under control, you can't, you can't like put everyone else in jeopardy as well. It's that simple. So this is sad, but that's where we're at. It just seems like, you know, we're going to be dealing with this until we have a vaccine and we better hope that the vaccine is available soon. Um, otherwise, I mean, we're just, we're not going to get it under control. We've decided to collect collectively as a society. We're just done with this. So it's depressing, but that's the state of things in America.