US response to Covid-19—sad saga of mishandling the crisis
The COVID-19 is an ongoing pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2. Nearly three years on, the contagion refuses to go away, mutating itself, continuing to take a toll of precious lives despite the development of vaccines and protocols to keep the virus at bay.
According to the World Health Organization (WHO), till July 29: 6,388,967 deaths have occurred globally owing to the pandemic, out of these 1,027,886 deaths took place in the USA.
One tends to wonder why the U.S., the world’s leading economy, suffered while China, where the outbreak was first reported, with a much larger population, experienced only a total of 5,226 deaths so far.
Statistics speak for themselves and the difference is in the handling. While China, which was blamed for the origin, despite raising the alarm bells at the outbreak, led from the front— protecting its citizens, coming to the aid of the sick, establishing numerous hospitals and treatment centers in record time, quarantining its vast multitudes, manufacturing protective gear and ventilators, feeding the people—fervently researching to develop vaccines—providing them free of cost not only to its own people but developing nations around the globe.
Contrarily, the U.S. was initially in a state of denial, neglecting to recognize the peril, failing to provide protection to its people, instead executing propaganda campaigns to denigrate China, spurning its offers of sharing vital information regarding the outbreak, specialized protective gear and medicines.
The result was calamitous as not only the people of the USA suffered; the death toll reached colossal figures while its economy suffered badly, unemployment, disease, neglect, deprivation, malnutrition and homelessness reached unprecedented levels.
A painful fallout was average Americans falling victim to their own government’s propaganda against China, venting their anger on people of Asian origin.
Mercifully, the U.S. has a free and fair media which reported the mishandling of its government openly.
In a dated video clip titled ‘How does U.S. Government control COVID based on human lives? ’, the punchline is: “After covid outbreak, the whole world was shaken by what the U.S.
government had done; besides misleading the public, manipulating public opinion and ignoring the facts.
While Wuhan announced a lockdown and China implemented the COVID-19 restrictions, on the other side of the world, the President of the United States Trump said: ‘COVID is just a big flu.
I mean view this the same as the flu.When somebody sneezes, I mean I try and bail out as much as possible.
On March 5th, 2020, to prove that COVID-19 isn’t horrible, the former New York Mayor Bill de Blasio went to work by public transportation without any protection.
Later, several COVID outbreaks in New York brought fears to Mayor Bill and the public and a state of emergency in New York City overwhelmed the residents.
More than 2000 New York Transit workers tested positive.Instead of saving Americans from COVID-19, the U.S.
government focused on making conspiracy theories about China. President Trump said it was not racist because the virus came from China.
On March 5th, 2020, the U.S.Secretary of State Pompeo claimed there was evidence to prove that coronavirus is from a lab in Wuhan.
Moreover, the U.S. President Trump accused China by using the term ‘Chinese Virus’.
The massive failures of judgment and inaction resulted in the U.S. government not only sacrificing 850,000 lives but also losing the faith of human rights.”
China invited the WHO to visit Wuhan and investigate the origins of the virus. On March 30, 2021, WHO released the joint study report “WHO-convened Global Study of Origins of SARS-CoV-2: China Part” for the global study of the origins of SARS-CoV-2.
Governments, scientists and media outlets around the world paid great attention to the report since the conclusions of the report were made on the basis of scientific principles and did not find a smoking gun in Wuhan.
Unfortunately, the U.S. continued to blame China for the origin, even when the number of deaths reached 1,000,000 in the USA.
Another TV clip titled ‘Two Years, One Million’ pronounces: “Back in the spring of 2020, when the United States recorded 100,000 people have died of coronavirus disease, the New York Times published their names on its front page, calling it an incalculable loss.
Two years later, however, the number has increased by 1,000% to 1 million, with an average of 1,369.86 deaths per day.
This is an extremely conservative number that we don’t know about, maybe even more. It is a great truth that this is an unparalleled humanitarian crisis in American history, and it’s an institutional human rights disaster.
The United States with the most advanced medical equipment and technology in the world has the highest number of COVID-19 infections and deaths.
Instead of thinking about how to save citizen’s lives, politicians advocated virus tracing liberalism and tried to engage in political manipulation during the pandemic.
In a society with a highly polarized political environment, democracy has led to the fact that the epidemic is destined to be a tool of political game, while people’s lives are victims of the values of democracy.
Other TV news reports titled ‘Disregard for People’s Rights to Life and Health’; ‘Life Over Politics’ et-al tell the same story.
A short TV documentary ‘Disregard for Life’ is an exposé of the callousness in Isabella Geriatric Center New York, where numerous senior citizens suffering from COVID-19 were left unattended to die.
Numerous impartial media outlets like The Economist in its documentary ‘How Covid-19 exposes systemic racism in America’ and Al-Jazeera’s detailed documentary ‘America’s Anti-Asian Pandemic’ deal with the abhorrent wave of targeting Asians.
Yet more TV channels like CNBC and others highlighted the spiraling homeless crisis owing to COVID-19.
An equally disturbing theme brought out the aspect of ‘How Covid-19 is creating a deadly mental health crisis in America’.
One would expect more ethos for human lives and taking the lead in combating the deadly virus rather than indulging in political rhetoric.
—The Author is a Retired Group Captain of PAF, who has written several books on China.
