COVID-19 is refusing to go, so is Donald Trump

It is no secret that this incarnation of the COVID-19 pandemic is spreading even more rapidly across the country and according to the research carried out by scientists at the University of Sri Jayewardenepura, this strain is more virulent than the one that invaded the country in early March. 

In the wake of the Chinese woman, the first to be tested positive for COVID-19 in Sri Lanka being sent back to China in January with plenty of fanfare, including hugs from Health Minister Pavithra Wanniarachchi, the government thought it had exorcised the evil from this country. 

But within months it surfaced again. When that too, to a large extent, was brought under control and several government members began to portray Sri Lanka as a country which had defeated the coronavirus, that a level of complacency set in resulting in people dropping their guard in the mistaken belief that the deadly virus had gone away. 

It was not so, and it resurfaced again at the garment factory in Minuwangoda and the fish market in Peliyagoda. The viral infection, more lethal than before, spread more rapidly bringing with it a pall of fear, panic and uncertainty over Sri Lanka with public, private and financial sector institutions taking another bashing, and the country ensnared in an economic downturn.

With that said, we take time off to focus on the US election which, during the past few days has taken centre-stage the world over. After four years in the Oval Office, incumbent President Donald Trump failed to produce any trumps on the ‘day of reckoning’. 

Joseph R. Biden, who formerly served as the 47th Vice President of the United States in the Obama Administration, held a winning hand with 290 Electoral College votes as against the 214 by Mr Trump. In his lust for power, Mr Trump did his utmost to throw more than a few spanners into the works in his attempt to undermine the electoral process when he found himself slipping out of the race for the Presidency.

We congratulate 78-year-old Joseph Robinette Biden Jr. who will be sworn-in on January 20 as the 46th president of the United States. In his speech to the nation, soon after overtaking Mr Trump, he assured the people he would restore political normalcy, dispel hatred and racism and bring about national unity while confronting the raging health, economic and climate change issues, which Mr Trump in his ‘wisdom’ thought it best to dismiss as another hoax notwithstanding the glaring evidence that our precious planet was experiencing its fall out. 

According to the New York Times, Mr Biden’s victory is a repudiation of Mr Trump by millions of voters exhausted with his divisive conduct and chaotic administration and was delivered by an unlikely alliance of women, people of colour, old and young voters and a sliver of disaffected Republicans. 

The results also provided a historic moment for Mr Biden’s running mate, Vice President-elect Senator Kamala Harris, and we congratulate her on becoming the first American woman of South-Asian-Jamaican decent to serve as Vice President.

 “The California Senator’s history-making win also represents the millions of women in the demographics - often overlooked, historically underrepresented and systematically ignored - who are now the recipients of that new power for the first time in the country’s 200-plus-year history,” 
the CNN said

Meanwhile, Swedish teenage environmental activist Greta Thunberg is reported to have taken a swipe at President Trump exactly 11 months after he mocked her in a Tweet when she was named Time Magazine’s Person of the Year.

In his December 2019 tweet, President Trump told 17-year-old Thunberg to work on her “anger management problem” and “go to an old-fashioned movie with a friend”.

“Chill Greta, chill!” the President smirked in his tweet and branded her Time award as “so ridiculous”.
“So ridiculous,” Ms Thunberg tweeted to Trump’s “STOP THE COUNT!” rant. “Donald must work on his Anger Management problem, then go to a good old fashioned movie with a friend! Chill 
Donald, Chill!”

President-elect Joe R. Biden and vice president-elect Kamala Harris will be sworn in on January 20 on the West Front lawn of the US Capitol building in Washington, D.C. and it is widely believed that the period before the inauguration is likely to be days of turbulence for America given President Trump’s intransigence and refusal to concede defeat. For Sri Lanka too the weeks ahead are bound to be turbulence-ridden as it continues to grapple with COVID-19 which has spread to almost every district in the country.