U.S. response one of `worst failures of leadership'

A record surge of coronavirus cases in the United States is pushing hospitals to the brink of capacity and killing up to 1,000 people a day, the latest figures show, with much of the country's attention focused on Tuesday's presidential election.

The U. S. broke its single- day record for new coronavirus infections on Thursday, reporting at least 91,248 new cases, as 17 states reported their highest daily number of hospitalized COVID-19 patients since the pandemic started.

More than 1,000 people died of the virus on Thursday. The number of hospitalized COVID-19 patients has risen over 50 per cent in October to 46,000, the highest since mid-august.

Among the hardest hit states are those most hotly contested in the campaign between President Donald Trump and challenger Joe Biden, such as Michigan, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.

Utah was among 14 states to report record increases in deaths this month and among 30 states to report record increases in cases.

The U.S. has recorded over 229,000 deaths and nearly nine million cases, both the highest single-country totals in the global pandemic.

“We are having some of the largest outbreaks that we've had during the entire pandemic. And nine, 10 months into this pandemic, we are still largely not quite prepared,” said Ashish Jha, dean of the Brown University School of Public Health.

Trump has repeatedly played down the virus, saying for weeks that the country is “rounding the turn,” even as cases and hospitalizations soared. He maintained his upbeat tone in a tweet Friday, claiming the country was doing much better than Europe.

In the U.S. House of Representatives, Democrats released a report on Friday condemning the Trump administration's pandemic response as being “among the worst failures of leadership in American history.” The failures had forced at least six million Americans into poverty and left millions more jobless, it said.

“The virus is a global scourge, but it has been an American fiasco,” said the 71-page interim report by Democratic staff of the House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Crisis, which was created in April.

Based on dozens of Democratic-led probes conducted during the panel's first six months, the report said investigators identified more than 60 instances in which administration officials overruled or sidelined top scientists to advance the president's political interests.

The subcommittee found over US$4 billion of potential fraud in programs to help struggling small businesses and accused the administration of directing funding for critical supplies to companies that had political connections or lacked experience, often without competition.