On Oct. 12, President Trump stated at a rally in Sanford, Florida, that “Under [his] leadership, we’re delivering a safe vaccine and a rapid recovery like nobody can even believe. And if you look at our upward path, no country in the world has recovered the way we’ve recovered economically or otherwise, not even close”—yet, the number of coronavirus cases continues to increase.

With COVID-19 cases surging in America, a question arises: what is the government doing to counter the virus? The president has reassured the American people at rallies and on national television. He even tweeted on Oct. 5, “Don’t be afraid of Covid. Don’t let it dominate your life. We have developed, under the Trump Administration, some really great drugs & knowledge.”

According to the White House’s website, “in January, President Trump acted quickly to restrict travel from foreign nationals traveling from China” and “in February, the President restricted travel for individuals recently traveling from Iran” in order to curb the rising cases. The website lists multiple procedures that the President is currently implementing or has already implemented to fight the rise of COVID-19. 

However, even with this public list of actions that the President has or is taking to stop the spread, there is still a growing number of cases across America—even Nassau County is witnessing a rise in cases.

“I saw an Instagram post from Bloomberg Business recently saying that Taiwan has not had a locally transmitted COVID-19 case for 200 days, and to my knowledge, that is because of contact tracing, wearing masks and travel restrictions,” senior Aliza Fine said. “I don’t know what the biggest factor contributing to Taiwan’s success at stopping the spread of the virus was, but if it was their travel restrictions, President Trump clearly didn’t put them in correctly [for America].” 

Andrea Lin, a junior, criticized President Trump’s handling of COVID-19.

“Trump has done a horrendous job handling COVID-19 for a simple reason,” Lin said. “The U.S. makes up about 4% of the world’s population, yet we account for almost 20% of the deaths from the virus, which essentially is 5 times more than what we should be based on population.”

Some students even feel unsafe within the Great Neck community.

“[Over] 230,000 people are dead,” Fine said. “Honestly, I don’t feel safe. People are still refusing to wear masks and hosting large gatherings, and President Trump is doing nothing to stop them. And by having huge rallies, [he] is actually encouraging anti-maskers and virus-deniers.”

“President Trump is definitely focused on getting re-elected and trying to find every possible ‘good thing’ he did during his time in office,” Fine said. “Literally wearing a mask and encouraging people to do so would curb the spread by a lot.”