Each country is responding very differently to the Covid-19 pandemic while the US has not yet shown its global leadership.

In Frankfurt, the President of the European Central Bank (ECB) worries that Covid-19 could cause an economic crisis as bad as what happened in 2008. In Berlin, Chancellor Angela Merkel warned nCoV can infect two-thirds of the German population. In London, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson has launched a nearly $ 40 billion bailout package to support the economy to withstand a severe shock.

While the number of people infected with the virus continued to skyrocket and the global financial market, from Tokyo to New York, continued to waver, world leaders finally began to speak out about the seriousness of Covid. -19, now declared a pandemic by the World Health Organization (WHO).

However, the voices of world leaders are currently inconsistent as each country is struggling to cope with the multidimensional challenges of nCoV, from overloading the health system and devastating economies for to the number of virus deaths is constantly increasing.

The "choir" lacks a conductor, a familiar role of the United States since World War II.

US President Donald Trump has failed to coordinate with other world leaders to come up with a joint response. He preferred to push the ban on moving and building the border wall rather than acting on scientific advice from his own medical team.

US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo also called nCoV a "Wuhan virus", as a way of blaming the country where the disease started, while also complicating efforts to coordinate the global response.

A way of thinking that ignores scientific evidence and only focuses on preventing people from outside the country from appearing in many places, especially populist factions in Europe. This just spreads skepticism and makes people not sure who to trust.

However, according to observers, it is not possible to blame Trump or the world leaders when they lack the unified voice. The problem may simply lie in the dangerous nature of the disease.

The range of tools that countries have used to combat previous global epidemics has been ineffective against nCoV. The rapid spread of the virus and the difficulty in identifying the source of infection prompt countries to respond quickly. The lack of common standards for testing, the policy of canceling public gatherings or quarantine measures further deepens the panic among citizens and undermines confidence in the leadership. .

Simultaneous shocks to the balance of supply and demand, closed factories, stagnant tourism, empty aviation ... are all new phenomena and may be too great for the "weapons" that are the main countries launched after past turbulences such as the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks or the 2008 financial crisis.

"The nature of the current crisis is very different from the crisis of 2008 because traditional tools were not effective," said US Foreign Relations Council Chairman Richard N. Haass. "Even if the United States takes on a leadership role, traditional measures will not fully work in the current context."

For example, the UK is praised for its strong economic response, such as a budget of billions of dollars for hospitals and workers affected by the disease or a sharp cut in interest rates. However, the London stock market still slumped.

According to Haass, the focus on dealing with economic shocks is understandable but not really mature. He said that countries need to put resources into the task of slowing and minimizing the spread of nCoV before embarking on the implementation of fiscal programs to overcome economic losses.

But their efforts are not always favorable. In the United States, a delay in the development of virus test kits has led to the failure of patients to be tested in time, leaving authorities unable to get a full picture of the scale of the disease, even though weeks have passed. The United States found the first cases.

In Italy, controversy is raging between politicians and health experts over whether the government is testing too many people in Lombardy, causing the number of infections to rise, causing panic in the community or not. Italy's reaction could be further undermined by the anti-vaccine movement once pursued by the populist 5 Star Movement.

Even comparing a case of one country to another is impossible because of the different testing procedures and diagnostic standards across the globe, says Dr. Chris Smith, a bacteriologist at the University. Cambridge study, assessment.

As a typical example, the number of Chinese nCoV infections skyrocketed as they began to record positive cases based on the patient's symptoms instead of laboratory test results, the method most commonly used for. water in use. But even laboratory tests can produce different results in different places, depending on the specimen or how health workers collect, process the sample, the expert said.