Medical journal writes editorial against Trump

WASHINGTON – In a historic move, the New England Journal of Medicine published an editorial on Wednesday condemning President Donald Trump and his administration for their response to the coronavirus pandemic.

For the first time in it's 208-year history, it called for current leadership to be voted out of office.

In an editorial signed by nearly three dozen editors, the journal said the Trump administration has “taken a crisis and turned it into a tragedy” regarding the ongoing coronavirus pandemic, writing the “magnitude of this failure is astonishing.”

“We rarely publish editorials signed by all the editors,” said Dr. Eric Rubin, editor-in-chief of the medical journal. Rubin said the editorial was drafted in August, according to CNN.

It points to the United States leading other countries for cases and deaths. So far, according to Johns Hopkins data, more than 7.5 million people have been diagnosed and more than 211,000 people have died from COVID-19.

“This crisis has produced a test of leadership. With no good options to combat a novel pathogen, countries were forced to make hard choices about how to respond. Here in the United States, our leaders have failed that test,” the editorial says.

“Why has the United States handled this pandemic so badly?” they ask. “We have failed at almost every step. We had ample warning, but when the disease first arrived, we were incapable of testing effectively and couldn't provide even the most basic personal protective equipment to health care workers and the general public.”