Where is outrage over COVID deaths? ADDRESS DISPARITIES

Every day this past week, the COVID-19 virus has killed over 3,000 Americans a day.

For some perspective, that daily total is more than died at Pearl Harbor, more than died on 9/11 and only dwarfed as a single event, by a untracked hurricane that hit Galveston, Texas over 110 years ago.

Have we become numb to this ongoing tragedy, unless it hits someone in our own immediate family. Where is the outrage? We know, or, at least the medical experts tell us, that many of these deaths (upward of 100,000) did not have to happen.

If the federal government’ response had been forceful, decisive and followed expert guidelines many of these deaths would not have occurred. There is no denial, that the single most culpable federal official has to be the man at the head of the Executive Branch, our president, Donald J. Trump. As one of our greatest presidents once said about being president, “The buck stops here.” For this President, the buck stops anywhere but here.

It’s not clear if we are collectively less upset and less outraged, because this tragedy was not a point in time event, but, rather a slow motion rolling disaster, so it has been less imprinted on our brain.

What is clear, is that some 72 million people looked past this unmitigated horror and voted to keep President Trump in office. It is also clear that Republican party officials are equally responsible as they failed to exert any influence on Trump to change his inept virus response.

The president’s and his party’s behavior has been reprehensible and abhorrent. But, is it any less so than the behavior of a public who has not called Trump out as being a total failure in this time of existential crisis.

People have died when they should not have had to and they continue to do so in record numbers. For so many reasons, history will record 2020 as one of our most shameful ever, and, the magnitude of this health tragedy is still not yet fully known.

– Ken Derow Swarthmore, PA

The devastating effects of this pandemic are being felt here and abroad. Disparities in the United

States have deepened. We see long lines at food banks, and the possibility of being homeless could become reality for many families. The consequences are dire: mental illness, violence against women and children, and more.

Abroad, the effects of the pandemic will send more than 150 million into extreme poverty and unravel 35 years of progress in the fight against preventable diseases like TB and malaria, the treatment of AIDS and extreme malnutrition.

Sens. Marco Rubio and Rick Scott can step up and prevent these apocalyptic projections from becoming reality. We urge them to speak to Senate leadership to bring a fair and comprehensive COVID relief bill now. We require $20 billion in global health investments, along with funding a minimum of $25 billion of the total $100 billion needed to address emergency rental assistance, a national moratorium on evictions, as well as a 15 percent increase in SNAP.

Together we will make the necessary changes for a better future.

– Yanick Perodin, M.D.

RESULTS Miami