Question

Question:

• Compare and contrast Donald Trumps approach to Covid-19 with the approach taken by Jacinder Ardern.

• How did Trump and Arden’s leadership styles effect the impact of Covid-19 in the USA and New Zealand?

1000 or less as much you can

Answer 1

DONALD TRUMP in the US and Jacinda Ardern in New Zealand. This connects the two different leadership styles with human drives and motivations.Donald Trump, president of the country with the most deaths from Covid-19, has communicated with an uninformed style that has provoked reactions ranging from shock to satire.

More than 60,000 Americans have died of complications arising from the COVID-19 Virus. This seems to be greater than the number of Americans who died in the Vietnam War. It is more than double the death toll of the country with the next highest mortality rate, Italy, and almost 10 times that of China, with a population approaching 1.5 billion people. Examining those numbers forensically, it is clear that African Americans as well as Latinos are dying at higher rates per head of population than White Americans. The problems of structural inequality: the fact that African Americans and Latinos represent a higher proportion of those in vulnerable service jobs, that they are more likely not to own a car and therefore must depend on public transport to get to and from work, the fact that they are more likely not to own their own homes and to live in apartment blocks.It means that the cards are dramatically stacked against them in terms of their vulnerability to both catching and sticking on  to the disease. Even the death toll growing daily, with ice hockey rinks being converted to temporary morgues and University sports facilities transformed into makeshift hospitals, here in the US, the news is dominated by one man: Donald Trump. Forget that more people are now dying of COVID-19-related complications every day than of cancer or heart disease. Forget that over 22 million Americans have filed for unemployment in the last four weeks. Forget that cases of suicide and domestic abuse are on the rise as the toll of “sheltering in place,” either in isolation or with your abuser wreaks its effects. Indeed, the only positive well-being statistic in the US is that March 2020 was the first March in which a school shooting did not take place since 2002 (Lewis, 2020). Now there is something to be happy about. over 60,000 Americans have died of complications arising from the COVID-19 Virus. This is greater than the number of Americans who died in the Vietnam War. It is also more than double the death toll of the country with the next highest mortality rate, Italy, and almost 10 times that of China, with a population approaching 1.5 billion people. Investigating those numbers forensically, it is clear that African Americans as well as Latinos are dying at higher rates per head of population than White Americans. This is not surprising. The issues of structural inequality: the fact that African Americans and Latinos represent a higher proportion of those in vulnerable service jobs, that they are more likely not to own a car and therefore must rely on public transport to get to and from work, the fact that they are more likely not to own their own homes and to live in apartment blocks, means that the cards are dramatically stacked against them in terms of their vulnerability to both catching and succumbing to the disease. Yes, we may all be in this together, but some of us are much more “in it” than others.

Despite all of these horrifying statistics—there he is, every evening on CNN or Fox News—doing his daily press briefing. Telling us that he isn’t responsible for the lag in testing. Telling us that something “beautiful” is about to happen. Telling us that he wants for us to be watching baseball again, for us to be going back to work and “get our lives back.” Last week he told us that injecting disinfectant might be a suitable way of tackling the virus (“I was just being sarcastic,” he later said. I’ve watched the clip. I don’t think so.). He speaks sotto voce, in a manner not unlike a sleazy inside trader telling us he has an offer we can’t refuse.

The qualities that have made Jacinda Ardern New Zealand’s most popular prime minister in a century were on display this week as she took an earthquake in her stride during a live television interview.

“We’re fine,” she declared cheerfully as the 5.9-magnitude quake shook New Zealand’s parliament house in Wellington for 15 seconds. “I’m not under any hanging lights.”

Her coolness under pressure, self-discipline and the decisiveness of her government’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic has led some to call Ardern the most effective national leader in the world.

But the key ingredient to her popularity and effectiveness is her approach to Covid-19. New Zealand, a modern small island nation, has become an emblematic champion of proper prevention and response to the coronavirus 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic.

Leading into these months, the country of approximately 5 million has just 2 dozen active COVID-19 cases—a full month after having reported absolutely none, on the backbone of strict initial travel policies, science-based government action, and strategies responsive to testing limitations.