Washington should right wrongs while they can
No Country for Old Men was the biggest Oscar winner in 2008. Its directors might have never anticipated that 12 years later, the film’s name would become the reality of American society in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic. The Wall Street Journal reported Wednesday that the number of US coronavirus-linked deaths at long-term care facilities, including nursing homes, has topped 10,000. The staggering figure almost equals the combined COVID-19 death toll in Germany and the Netherlands. Worse, some states in the US still haven’t reported relevant data.
While people grieve over the misfortune, a thought-provoking question is raised: Why has the US, the most developed country with the highest level of medical, healthcare and nursing system in the world, failed to prevent the devastating fatalities among the elderly?
Insufficient testing is a major reason. A US netizen wrote on Twitter Thursday, “My Dad just passed away from COVID-19. Only after showing symptoms of the flu, they did a chest X-ray for pneumonia and then he was tested for COVID-19. They were not routinely doing tests on all.”
China has been adopting strict quarantine measures since January. Obviously, the US paid no attention to it. In February, when respiratory problems emerged among residents of the Life Care Center of Kirkland, Washington, a party went ahead anyway. Social distancing was apparently not in the center’s playbook. Soon after, dozens of elderly people there died of the coronavirus.
Since the outbreak was first reported in China, there have been few reports of cluster cases at Chinese nursing homes. China does have relatively fewer care facilities for elder people compared to the US. But China has not lowered its guard on epidemic prevention and control in those centers.
Take the community welfare house in Wuchang district, Wuhan. It established an epidemic prevention and control working mechanism right after the outbreak, cancelled all its staff members’ vacations and asked them to remain in their positions 24 hours a day. No one was allowed to go outside. Body temperatures of the elderly were measured twice a day. Other nursing centers nationwide have taken similar measures.
China has taken the health and lives of elder people seriously with specific treatments for them. China’s National Health Commission said among more than 2,500 diagnosed patients in Wuhan of over 80 years old, 70 percent of them have been cured. The high fatality rate among the elderly in the US mirrored the severity of problems of epidemic prevention. If the country fails to resolve them, people will eventually question its system: Why is this tragedy happening in a country with the highestlevel medical system?
Respecting medical science is perhaps the most significant thing to do right now. The pandemic is far from over and the US has a lot to learn from the experience of others, including China. If Washington attaches importance to people’s lives, it should shelve its ideological difference and attacks against Beijing, and right wrongs before it is too late.