Souls of 200,000 are asking why

Views from around the world. These opinions are not necessarily shared by Stuff newspapers.

Midday on Tuesday, the death toll in America from Covid19 passed the grim mark of 200,000. This is, without doubt, a monumental tragedy. It is also a massive national embarrassment. The United States accounts for 4 per cent of the world’s population yet more than 20 per cent of the world’s pandemic fatalities.

Much of the blame lies at the hands of an incompetent and politically motivated Trump administration. But it is also time to examine the other factors for the nation’s failure. In part, America’s failure over this crisis is a result of a hodgepodge federal-state approach to public health that makes a coordinated response difficult. It is also the result of a profit-driven medical and insurance system that combines high costs with breathtaking inequalities.

This national crisis also speaks to an individualistic, iconoclastic culture in which too many people balk at taking reasonable precautions, revel in conspiracy theories, and are manipulated by news organisations that profit from reinforcing people’s often ill-informed opinions.

America’s individualistic culture has certainly made it a hub of entrepreneurialism and innovation. Nonetheless, the pandemic has shown its downside. Somehow, America has to figure a way of not revelling in stupid behaviour in the name of individualism and to plan for future pandemics with more rational and unified strategies.