Washington’s challenge: open politics and keep the city safe | International

The shock is on the way to occurring without remedy in the coming days: as the Donald Trump Administration follow through on plans to reopen the federal state apparatus, Washington’s largest employer, and the highest authority in the nation’s capital, Democratic Mayor Muriel Bowser, insist on her commitment to extend the order to stay home and keep Non-essential businesses closed until June 8. In Bowser’s opinion, coronavirus infections have not come down enough to make it safe to reopen the capital to life this Friday, as he had originally anticipated. So far, the pandemic has claimed 350 lives; there are more than 6,500 confirmed cases of covid-19 in the District of Columbia.

Washington has a population of just over 700,000 residents, but its metropolitan area includes parts of neighboring Maryland and Virginia, which multiplies by 10 the number of inhabitants who move every day to, for the most part, go to work in the capital of the country. Its special District status implies that it lacks the legislative and executive structure of the States, whose governors are the ones who are deciding on the imposition and lifting of the containment measures in the rest of the country.

These days Washington is not Washington. It takes weeks without being it. Without its politicians, lobbyists, diplomatic staff, workers of the largest international organizations that have their headquarters in this city, the crowded streets at lunchtime in what is known as Downtown are now deserted.

Or almost. Because the confinement -not obligatory- to avoid the contagion that the population is practicing has brought to light the other reality of the city that has always existed, but is now more visible than ever. Homeless people, young and old who roam the streets with clear symptoms of mental illness, all those who have fallen from the established system are legion that was previously hidden behind the so-called normality. But if this crisis has proven anything, beyond the lack of preparation for a pandemic that will leave indelible scars, it is that normality will take time to return. If you come back.

A reminder that past time no longer exists is the routine the Legislative Branch represented on the Washington Capitol tries to implement. These days the city of great politics is made up of deserted avenues until it reaches Congress, leaving behind the big multilaterals, the International Monetary Fund and the world Bank, which were born as a result of the international conference in Bretton Woods (New Hampshire), when it was a year before the end of World War II. They are huge ghost insignia ships empty of people.

Since the beginning of May, the House of Representatives and the Senate try to recover the lost pulse. But the rules of the game have changed. Social distance and protection measures do not make the work of legislators, or at least those who have returned to their seats, easy, because many continue to work remotely through the Internet. Last Tuesday, while the country’s health experts offered their testimony through the internet about the Administration’s response to the coronavirus pandemic before the Senate Committee in charge of the HealthMost of the senators who were present covered their nose and mouth with protective masks. Nancy Pelosi, the Speaker of the House of Representatives, appeared on Hillary Clinton’s Instagram account perfectly paired with a pink jacket suit and matching face mask, before taking a Capitol elevator.

Regarding elevators. Only one person if he lacks a protective mask. Up to two if they carry it. Please press the disinfectant gel before pressing the elevator call button, and also to press the desired floor. There are no open cafeterias and politicians, aides and Capitol staff are asked to bring their lunch boxes from home. That they keep their distance at mealtime and leave their place clean.

If access to United States Congress There had always been something great about it, now the feeling that nothing will ever be as it was before is present at every step that is taken through the majestic rooms. Silence permeates everything. If it weren’t for the extreme waxing of the floor, one could hear each footstep rumble in a building still almost deserted. A warden comments with a colleague about the uncertainty in which he lives, with more than a dozen Capitol policemen infected with the coronavirus as well as several members of the political cast.

Something similar happens with the federal government and all the agencies that work for it. With the subway – the transportation system that brings thousands of people closer to their jobs every day – under minimums and the announcement that pre-crisis service levels will not be recovered until early 2021, workers have a difficult time reinstatement.

Mayor Bowser has been thoroughly employed in a city where, despite the fact that less than 50% of the population is black, this segment of the population accounts for more than 80% of deaths. In its attempt to reach all citizens, the city of Washington signed the former first lady. For several days, when the phone rang, an unrecognizable voice announced that the speaker on the other end of the line was Michelle Obama. Remember, we ask that you stay home except if you have a job related to health, food or other essential tasks, “said Mrs. Obama in her message.

The mandate of a mayoress before the authority of the President of the United States deciding on the implementation of the federal government. The same Wednesday, Trump disavowed his top health adviser, Dr. Fauci, when saying that the caution used by the expert regarding the reopening of schools did not seem “an acceptable response”. The collision is served.

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