President Trump’s legacy of mismanagement of the pandemic
By Farhang Jahanpour
OXFORD, Dec 1, 2020 (IPS) –
COVID-19 is on track to be the
deadliest and one of the most
catastrophic epidemics since the
1918-1919 flu pandemic, which
infected about 500 million people
or one-third of the world’s population
at the time. The number of
deaths was estimated somewhere
between 17 and 50 million, and
possibly as high as 100 million
worldwide.
The first observations of illness
and mortality were documented
in December 1917 at Camp
Greene, North Carolina. To maintain
morale, World War I censors
minimized reports of casualties,
but as newspapers in neutral
Spain were free to report the
epidemic deaths, it was wrongly
named “the Spanish Flu”.
The COVID-19 pandemic will
also have widespread and longlasting
political, economic, and
social consequences, challenging
many equations on the international
arena and perhaps even
changing the balance of power
between the United States and
China. One of the main effects
of the pandemic in the international
context has been in the
way that different countries have
dealt with it.
COVID-19 was first reported in
Wuhan, capital of China’s Hubei
province, in December 2019. On
Dec. 31, 2019, the World Health
Organisation’s (WHO) China
office heard the first reports of a
previously-unknown virus behind
a number of pneumonia cases
in Wuhan. The Chinese government
responded immediately to
the initial outbreak by placing
Wuhan and nearby cities under a
de-facto quarantine encompassing
roughly 50 million people in
Hubei province.
The WHO quickly warned
other countries of the highly
infectious virus and, as early as
Jan. 30, it designated COVID-19
a “public health emergency of
international concern”. Then, on
March 11, it officially declared the
COVID-19 outbreak a pandemic.
The statement by its directorgeneral
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Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus
read: “WHO has been
assessing this outbreak around
the clock and we are deeply concerned
both by the alarming levels
of spread and severity, and by
the alarming levels of inaction.”
So, WHO warned the world
about the existence of the deadly
COVID-19 virus on January 30,
and on March 11 classified it as
a pandemic and bemoaned “the
alarming levels of inaction.” Due
to the total lockdown of Hubei
province, the Chinese limited the
spread of the virus and brought it
under control. Consequently, as
of 29 Nov. 2020, COVID-19 has
infected 92,300 and killed 4,742
people in China.
However, the situation has
been starkly different in many
other countries. The figures in
the United States as of 29 November
2020 are 13,216,193 cases
and 265,897 deaths, by far the
largest number in the world. In
other words, China has experienced
0.34 deaths per 100,000
people, while the figure for the
US is 77.19 per 100,000 people,
or 227 times greater. The United
States has about four percent of
the global population, but over 20
percent of COVID-19 cases. The
number of covid patients in hospitals
has reached a new record
high.
Even India, with four times the
US’s population and with much
more limited public health facilities,
has suffered 9,309,787 cases
and 135,715 deaths, just over
half the number of US deaths.
Similarly, the figures for Russia
are 2,196,691 cases and 38,175
deaths.
It is often argued that the low
number of cases in China has been
due to the authoritarian nature of
the state, but other democracies
such as Australia, New Zealand,
South Korea and some European
countries have fared much better
than the United States too.
Australia has had 27,885 cases
and 907 deaths, New Zealand
2,050 cases and 25 deaths, South
Korea 33,375 cases and 522
deaths. Germany, like the rest
of Europe, has suffered badly as
the result of COVID-19, but there
have been only 1.04 million cases
and 16,011 deaths. This means
that with a population four times
that of Germany’s, the number
of deaths in the United States is
nearly 16 times higher.
Consequently, while China,
South Korea, New Zealand and
some other East Asian countries
have been able to allow their citizens
to attend work and school,
and enjoy restaurants, theatres
and sporting events, the United
States and much of Europe
have languished under lockdown
for a much longer period. While
China has seen a growth of 4.9%
between July and September
compared to the same quarter
last year, the United States and
much of Europe are in the throes
of deep recession.
In the United States the economic
fallout for the working
class has been severe. Unemployment
has skyrocketed with
45.4 million new unemployment
claims since March, and at least
1/6th of those with jobs before
the pandemic now out of work.
As many as 40 million renters
may be facing eviction by the end
of the year.
So, the reason for this disparity
between the countries with
higher levels of mortality and
those with much fewer cases has
nothing to do with being authoritarian
versus democratic. It has
been mainly due to the lack of
management, denial of science,
putting personal interests ahead
of the public good and closing
one’s eyes to reality.
Even before the start of the
pandemic, in May 2018, the White
House disbanded the pandemic
response team. In July 2019, the
administration decided to eliminate
the post of the epidemiologist
in the Centers for Disease
Control (CDC). As a result, the
country was ill-prepared to cope
with a major pandemic.
On Jan. 22, when many cases
of COVID-19 had been detected in
the United States, the president
boasted: “We have it totally under
control. It’s one person coming in
from China. It’s going to be just
fine.” At other times, he called
the report of the pandemic a hoax
perpetrated by the Democrats to
harm his re-election chances.
Initially, the president praised
China’s handling of the coronavirus,
saying: “China has been
working very hard to contain the
Coronavirus. The United States
greatly appreciates their efforts
and transparency. It will all work
out well. In particular, on behalf
of the American People, I want to
thank President Xi.”
However, later on, instead of
following what President Xi had
done to contain the virus, Trump
blamed China for the spread
of the pandemic in the United
States, calling it “the Chinese
virus.”
As late as February 27, he said:
“It’s going to disappear. One day,
it’s like a miracle, it will disappear.”
Instead of introducing a
lockdown, on March 4 he said: “If
we have thousands or hundreds
of thousands of people that get
better just by, you know, sitting
around and even going to work
— some of them go to work, but
they get better.”
Instead of listening to the
experts, he began advocating the
use of untested drugs, such as
“drinking hydroxychloroquine.”
His justification for advocating
it was: “I like this stuff. I really
get it. People are surprised that
I understand it… Every one of
these doctors said, ‘How do you
know so much about this?’ Maybe
I have a natural ability. Maybe I
should have done that instead of
running for president.”
He gave exaggerated figures
about the number of tests that
were carried out or the PPE that
had been distributed, but hospitals
were suffering from a lack of
equipment and low levels of tests.
The Atlantic reported that less
than 14,000 tests had been done
in the ten weeks since the administration
had first been notified of
the virus, though Vice-President
Mike Pence who had been put
in charge of the pandemic had
promised the week prior that 1.5
million tests would be available
by this time.
At one point, the president
advocated injecting disinfectant,
saying: “I see the disinfectant that
knocks it out in a minute, one
minute. And is there a way we can
do something like that by injection
inside or almost a cleaning?
As you see, it gets in the lungs, it
does a tremendous number on
the lungs, so it would be interesting
to check that.”
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