COVID Memorial Project install of 20,000 American flags on the
National Mall as the United States crosses the 200,000 lives lost
in the COVID-19 pandemic September 22, 2020 in Washington, DC. Win
McNamee/Getty Images/AFP
The United States registered its 200,000th death from
the Covid-19 pandemic on Tuesday, the latest grim milestone for the
country just weeks before voters decide if President Donald Trump
will stay in office.
According to a rolling tally by Johns Hopkins University,
200,182 Americans have died and 6.86 million have been confirmed
infected by the novel coronavirus.
The US has had the world’s highest official death toll for
months, ahead of Brazil and India, with 137,272 and 88,935 deaths
respectively.
Overall, the US accounts for four percent of the world’s
population and 20 percent of its recorded coronavirus deaths.
Critics say the statistics expose the Trump administration’s
failure to meet its sternest test ahead of the November 3
election.
“Due to Donald Trump’s lies and incompetence in the past six
months, (we) have seen one of the gravest losses of American life
in history,” his Democratic rival Joe Biden charged Monday.
Reacting to the bleak new milestone, the top Democrat in
Congress, Speaker Nancy Pelosi, blamed the soaring toll squarely on
“Trump’s deadly disinformation and negligence — including his
cover-up of the catastrophic nature of the virus.”
Trump, for his part, insists that the United States is already
“rounding the corner” — while betting on the swift approval of a
Covid-19 vaccine to boost his reelection chances.
“We will distribute a vaccine, we will defeat the virus, we will
end the pandemic, and we will enter a new era of unprecedented
prosperity, cooperation and peace,” Trump said in a recorded
message to the UN General Assembly on Tuesday.
‘Failed national response’
Trump has previously stated that by April of next year, most
Americans who want to be immunized will have a vaccine.
But most experts argue that betting on vaccines is not a viable
strategy.
Memorial Project install 20,000 American flags on the National Mall
as the United States crosses the 200,000 lives lost in the COVID-19
pandemic September 20, 2020 in Washington, DC. McNamee/Getty
Images/AFP
Without adhering to masks, distancing and contact-tracing, and
without ramping up testing, tens of thousands more could still die
before life returns to normal in the US.
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“Covid will be the third leading cause of death this year in the
US,” tweeted Tom Frieden, the director of the Centers for Disease
Control and Prevention (CDC) under former president Barack
Obama.
Only the number of people who died from heart disease and cancer
will be higher.
“The staggering death toll from the virus is a reflection of a
failed national response, but it’s not too late to turn it around,”
said Frieden.
It’s likely that the US actually crossed 200,000 deaths in July,
said Eric Topol, director of the Scripps Research Institute, citing
the excess overall mortality rate.
The initial lack of tests led to an undercount of the virus’
toll.
“We are the outlier to have been caught totally flat-footed with
no testing, and just not learning from mistakes,” Topol said.
“We never got adequate suppression, and yet we’re opening
everything and trying to make believe that everything is just
great.”
Adoption of public health measures remains mixed across the
US.
Hotspots flare
In many cities, students have gone back to school virtually, the
indoor areas of bars and restaurants remain closed, and mask use is
up.
But hotspots are still flaring up, currently in the Midwest and
on college campuses that returned to in-person learning.
Critics say Trump abdicated responsibility and left it to the
state governors to deal with the crisis and decide on
lockdowns.
abdicated responsibility for the pandemic. MANDEL NGAN /
AFP
“We had a crazy quilt of responses across the country that
totally confused the average person,” William Schaffner, a health
policy professor at Vanderbilt University, told AFP.
“We needed a unified, coherent, strong, national response.”
The CDC, the nation’s leading health agency, this week reversed
its latest guidance, days after saying that the virus can commonly
spread through “droplets or small particles, such as those in
aerosols” produced when a person breathes.
The belief that the virus can be transmitted by particles that
linger in the air long after being exhaled has gained support among
scientists.
But CDC on Monday removed the wording, saying it was a draft
posted in error.
AFP
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