Trump blamed for high Covid deaths

Country is paying the price due to his ‘lies and incompetence,’ says Biden

WASHINGTON: Democrat Joe Biden said President Donald Trump’s “lies and incompetence” since the start of the coronavirus pandemic had led to “one of the greatest losses in American history”.

The Democratic presidential nominee noted that the country was about to hit the “tragic milestone” of recording 200,000 deaths from Covid-19, adding that the number represented many “empty chairs” for families who had lost loved ones to the virus.

According to a tally by Johns Hopkins University, 199,743 Americans have died and 6.8 million have been infected.

The US has had the world’s highest official death toll for months, ahead of Brazil and India, with 136,895 and 87,882 deaths, respectively.

Overall, the US accounts for 4% of the world’s population and 20% of its coronavirus deaths, while its daily fatality rate relative to the overall population is four times greater than that of the European Union.

Critics said the statistics expose the Trump administration’s failure to meet its sternest test ahead of the Nov 3 election.

“Due to Donald Trump’s

lies and incompetence in the past six months, (we) have seen one of the gravest losses of American life in history,” Biden charged on Monday.

“With this crisis, a real crisis, a crisis that required serious presidential leadership, he just wasn’t up to it. He froze. He failed to act. He panicked. And America has paid the worst price of any nation in the world.”

Trump has set even more ambitious goals, stating that by April of next year, most Americans who want to be immunised will have a vaccine. Most experts argue that betting on vaccines is not a viable strategy.

Without adhering to masks, distancing and contact-tracing, and without ramping up testing, tens of thousands more could still die before life returns to normal in the US.

“What we need to do is shift ... towards a more screening approach that’s proactive to test asymptomatic individuals,” Harvard surgeon and health policy researcher Thomas Tsai told AFP.

He said the government should approve rapid, at-home antigen tests, which it has been reluctant to do so far, and which would require the government to pay for it instead of insurance companies.

“Covid will be the third leading cause of death this year in the US,” tweeted Tom Frieden, the director of the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention.

“The staggering death toll from the virus is a reflection of a failed national response but it’s not too late to turn it around.” – Agencies