Statistics in themselves do not lie, our interpretations of the numbers may vary and create a bias but the raw data is what it is; facts. As of September 25th a tally of data from 213 countries reveals the following comparisons for the United States:
- With 207,000 deaths USA ranks highest in deaths and 21% of all deaths world wide.
- 626 deaths per million ranks 10th highest in the world. ( San Marino is first and so in Andorra is the top ten, excluding them for their small populations USA ranks 8th).
- The world average of deaths per 1 million is 128 per million.
- In testing coverage USA ranks 20th with 30% of the population tested.
- Total cases USA ranks the highest 7.2 million cases representing 22% of all cases in the world.
- With 4.4 million recovered USA ranks second in the world.
- In active cases USA ranks the highest with 2.54 million.
- With 14,156 currently critically infected by the virus USA ranks the highest, implying these people will sadly be added to the death list.
- Canada, USA’s neighbour has had 245 death per million and total deaths there are 9,249.
President Trump has often said that his administration has done a great job and are leading the world in fighting Covid-19. The statistical evidence clearly establishes that the US is far from leading the fight against the virus largely because of the lack of policy and cogent action against the pandemic. President Trump has ridiculed the wearing of masks, encourage political rallies with no social distancing. In April he said they had predicted total deaths in USA would be 60,000! Two weeks later that number was exceeded.
The concoction of misleading information, even suggesting unproven cures and all the time ignoring scientific advice when in private he knew this was the worlds deadliest pandemic. In effect his lack of policy and actions contrary to his duty to protect the American people can only lead one to call this the Trump Virus. Even today experts point to shortages in sanitizers, PPE equipment and other support equipment putting the lives of patients and the caregivers at risk.
There is evidence that the virus may well be mutating and while infecting more people it’s fatality rate seems to be less in the recent weeks. However this does not mean that the virus will go away as President Trump has been often heard to say. The danger of the virus remains that it continues to spread through asymptomatic carriers therefor suggesting that a strategy of prevention ( masks and social distancing), mass testing, contact tracing and isolation are the key pillars upon which any plan to contain the virus rest.
On all these criterion President Trump has failed, so much so he extolled that testing should be slowed down, and recently asked CDC to only test people with symptoms of the virus thus ignoring the simple fact that this virus spreads primarily through asymptomatic carriers! What is even more sad is that had measured been taken in a timely and effective manner the death toll in the United States would have perhaps been one third of deaths would occurred from the present level. Instead President Trump says had he not done what he did the death toll would have been in the millions, whitewashing that all he did actually created the impact of the Trump Virus to be worse than it could have.
Countries with less resources, weaker health care facilities and certainly less money have done a remarkable job. This was because there was leadership on the issue and the leadership of these countries listened to the scientists and took the bitter pill of lockdowns and their economic impact. With out a doubt it is obvious that USA’s COVID-19 score card would have been much better had it been for better leadership. There can be no doubt that Donald Trumps lack of leadership and his push back against sensible measures to tackle the Covid-19 virus was and is tantamount to homicidal negligence.
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