As election day looms, a traumatized electorate is weighing the failures of Republican leaders to control the pandemic in Arizona, and across the US
". . .The coronavirus crisis, which has dominated the election cycle, looms especially large over Arizona . The virus has killed more than 227,000 people in the US, including nearly 6,000 Arizonans, and forced hundreds of thousands more to file for unemployment. It has taken a disproportionate toll on Latino, Black and Native American populations.
Maricopa county was especially hard hit, and remains the fifth worst affected in the US . With election day less than a week away, a traumatized electorate is weighing the failures of Republican leaders to control the pandemic in Arizona, and across the country.
‘People don’t have work, and they don’t have healthcare’ At the peak of the pandemic this summer, Latino residents in Phoenix – who make up 40% of the city’s population – were nearly twice as likely to contract the virus as white residents. Latino, Native American and Black residents have not only been disproportionately dying of the virus, they have also been bearing the brunt of the pandemic’s economic fallout. . .
In a county where the local sheriff has been working with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice), allowing raids and deportations to carry on amid the pandemic, people were unnerved by uniformed police and national guard, requests for ID, said Emma Viera, the executive director of the Phoenix based nonprofit Unlimited Potential. . .
‘When Covid hit, it really changed the concerns of voters’ By June, Arizona had emerged as a coronavirus hotspot, counting more cases per capita than the hardest-hit European nations. Maricopa county was reporting 2,000 to 3,000 cases a day, “eclipsing the New York City boroughs even on their worst days”, according to epidemiologists at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia. Lines at drive-thru testing sites were at times 1,000 cars deep. Hospitals were overwhelmed, and so were funeral homes and morgues. The county ordered industrial coolers to keep the dead.
A month earlier, the governor, Doug Ducey – under pressure from the president and his anti-mask voter base, had announced plans to reopen the state. At that point, Arizona did not meet the White House’s own criteria for reopening, but Trump had nonetheless cheered on anti-lockdown protests across the country.
. . .Ducey recently defended his handling of the crisis in response to criticism from Biden. “I prohibited cities from implementing onerous shutdowns on local businesses and citizens as some local politicians threatened to bring our entire economy to a complete halt,” he wrote on Twitter . “It paid off.”
His constituents may not agree. . .
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