Our View: COVID blame extends beyond White House failures
Midday on Tuesday, the death toll in America from COVID-19 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% of the world’s population yet more than 20% of the world’s pandemic fatalities.
Put another way, the U.S. death toll from COVID-19 is what would have resulted had Osama bin Laden mounted 67 attacks on the United States similar to those of 9/11.
Had the United States matched Canada’s performance in restraining the number of deaths per capita, 118,000 of those 200,000 people would still be alive. If it had matched Germany’s, 163,000 would still be alive.
Much of the blame lies with an astonishingly incompetent and politically motivated Trump administration, led by a president who downplayed the threat, touted miracle cures, sidelined science and absurdly gave his performance an “A” grade while claiming “nothing more could have been done.”
Having pointed out the administration’s shortcomings on many occasions, it is also time to examine other factors for the nation’s failure, ones that go beyond who’s in the White House.
In part, America’s failure in dealing with 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 organizations that profit from reinforcing people’s often ill-informed opinions.
Social distancing, the wearing of masks in public and the banning of large indoor gatherings are not assaults on freedom, as some would have it. Rather, they are efforts to limit the number of deaths and long-term illnesses until vaccines and therapeutics can come to the rescue.
Those who flout restrictions on gatherings — for weddings, worship services, motorcycle parades, college parties, political rallies or anything else — are only putting themselves and others at risk.
In some ways, America’s individualistic culture has given it an advantage over more conformist nations in Europe and Asia. It has certainly made the United States a hub of entrepreneurialism and innovation.
Nonetheless, the pandemic has shown its downside. Somehow, America has to figure a way of not reveling in stupid behavior in the name of individualism. Somehow the nation needs to plan for future pandemics with more rational and unified strategies. The souls of 200,000 people, with more to follow, provide ample reason to do so.