Thousands of Americans could be alive right now if not for the policies of the Washington administration
As News Front reported earlier, the US government ignored the spread of the deadly virus for a long time. This has led to the USA becoming the world leader in the spread of COVID-19. Almost half a million people have died of the coronavirus in the States in the year since the pandemic began, but this sacrifice was not inevitable.
A report published in The Lancet, one of the world’s most respected scientific journals, suggested that the number of coronavirus victims in the US could have been 40% fewer.
“The global COVID-19 pandemic has had a disproportionate impact on the US, with more than 26 million cases and more than 450,000 deaths [now 471,000] as of early February 2021, about 40% of which could have been prevented”, – the report said.
The reason for the over-reported deaths was the Trump administration’s policy of ignoring the pandemic and not trying to encourage the country’s population to fight the spread of the virus. On the contrary, Trump rejected the threat and refused international cooperation.
But it would be unfair to place all responsibility solely on Trump, say the report’s authors. It is important to understand that problems in the US have been accumulating for decades because of the neoliberal policies pursued by both Republicans and Democrats. For example, skyrocketing health care costs, lack of health insurance, economic inequality and racism have led to declining life expectancy in the US.