1.84 million cases, over 106,000 deaths. The U.S. currently leads the world in COVID-19 cases. The government could have stepped in to prevent these tragedies, but they chose not to. However, they had the resources however to prepare for a pandemic of this scope.
In May 2018, the U.S. National Security Council removed the top official responsible for pandemic preparedness, according to New York Magazine. They proceeded to eliminate its global health security team. In the summer of 2019, the Department of Health and Human Service discontinued a maintenance contract for over 2,100 ventilators in the federal government’s emergency supply. This would become one of the main reasons that many hospitals reported a shortage of ventilators when COVID-19 began to swarm throughout the country. By April 2020, 2,000 federal stockpiles were still unavailable due to the contract being withheld, according to CNN.
U.S. Secretary of Health Alex Azar was reportedly informed of the virus’ emergence at the beginning of January 2020, but it took him 15 days to alert U.S. President Donald Trump, according to The Hill. Once Trump received the warning, he ignored it. Two days after he received the warning, the first U.S. case of COVID-19 was announced in Wash. state. A few days later, in a CNBC interview, he said on the virus that “We have it under control. It’s going to be just fine.” This proved to be untrue.
On Feb. 27, Azar told lawmakers that it was unlikely a large number of Americans would need to be hospitalized. The same day, Trump claimed that the virus would disappear one day “like a miracle.” Statements like these have played a huge part in belief that has spread by many people that the virus should not be taken seriously.
Trump would continue making such claims without basis in the next week. Only two days later, he claimed once again that “everything is really under control.” On March 2, Trump would claim that a vaccine would be “readily available.” To this day, no one knows when such a vaccine will be available. The New York Times would eventually report that people in the administration knew the country would have to lock down for the pandemic, but they refused to acknowledge this threat.
In early March, the commissioner of the Food and Drugs Administration (FDA), Stephen Hahn, relaxed rules regulating whether hospitals and labs could create tests. This would limit the ability of researchers to create new COVID-19 tests, as emergency approval for testing would not arrive until much later. This was a disastrous move, as many hospitals, later on, would report testing shortages, leading to uncertainty not only among many patients but everyday people to see if they had the virus. People lost their lives because of this negligence, but it is easy to see it could have been prevented. On April 10, Vice President Mike Pence announced that four million tests would be distributed by the end of that week. By April 12, the U.S. had conducted only two million tests, with many states continuing to report testing shortages.
Locally, doctors have felt the effects of these shortages. Dr. Ruben Nazario, a Pediatric Emergency Physician at Frederick Health Hospital in Frederick, Maryland, said that testing shortages were common when COVID-19 patients began the influx into his hospital. “Initially we didn’t have any testing. Then when the testing came, it was limited to people who exposed or traveled. In terms of personal and protective equipment, we didn’t have enough. Local governments have done more.”
Now let’s fast forward to today. Thousands of people are killed each day in the U.S. by COVID-19. And the government refuses to care. On April 17, Trump tweeted for states to be “liberated” from the mandatory stay at home orders by state governments designed to protect people from contracting the virus. As seen by protests in states such as Michigan against stay at home orders, it shows that people are still being misled over the virus’ threatening nature, embracing the lies-as-fact nature of the U.S. Government, leading to many COVID-19 deaths in the U.S. as well.
Pediatrician Michele Ghim of Frederick Health Hospital said, “My reaction may be different from another’s reaction to it, but I think that messaging is dangerous and has created the idea that people don’t need to take this seriously. I think it’s sad that people have been misled.”
On May 4, a model for Health Metrics and Evaluation at the University Of Washington forecasted that the number of deaths due to COVID-19 would eventually reach over 134,000. On May 8, an analysis by the national public health group Well Being Trust reported that as many as 75,000 Americans could die because of drug or alcohol misuse and suicide as a result of this pandemic. Ultimately, the U.S. Government will be responsible for these deaths due to their negligence and incompetence concerning the virus, especially when they easily had the options to curtail its impact. They have blood on their hands.
Sources:
https://www.justsecurity.org/69650/timeline-of-the-coronavirus-pandemic-and-u-s-response/
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/timeline-president-donald-trump-changing-statements-on-coronavirus/
https://www.cnn.com/2020/04/02/politics/trump-ventilators-stockpile-coronavirus/index.html
https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/2020/04/17/liberate-michigan-trump-constitution/
https://www.cnn.com/2020/05/04/health/health-coronavirus-model-doubles-deaths/index.html